I have dined in many places and have eaten with many different folk, but never have I enjoyed a meal more than this, perhaps because of the padre who presided at my end of the table. A manly cleric this, bright-eyed, resolute of jaw but humorous of mouth, whose white choker did but seem to offset the virility of him. A man, I judged, who preached little and did much--a sailor's padre in very truth. He told me how, but for an accident, he would have sailed with Admiral Cradock on his last, ill-fated cruise, where so many died that Right and Justice might endure. "Poor chaps!" said I. "Yes," said he, gently, "and yet it is surely a noble thing to--die greatly!" And surely, surely for all those who in cause so just have met Death unflinching and unafraid, who have taken hold upon that which we call Life and carried it through and beyond the portals of Death into a sphere of nobler and greater living--surely to such as these strong souls the Empire they served so nobly and loved so truly will one day enshrine them, their memory and deeds, on the brightest, most glorious page of her history, which shall be a monument more enduring than brass or stone, a monument that shall never pass away. So we talked of ships and the sea and of men until, aware that the company had risen, we rose also, and donning hats and coats, set forth, talking still. Together we paced beside docks and along piers that stretched away by the mile, massive structures of granite and concrete, which had only come into being, so he told me, since the war. Side by side we ascended the broad gangway, and side by side we set foot upon that battle-scarred deck whose timbers, here and there, showed the whiter patches of newer wood. Here he turned to give me his hand, after first writing down name and address, and, with mutual wishes of meeting again, went to his duties and left me to the wonders of this great ship. Crossing the broad deck, more spacious it seemed than an ocean liner, I came where my travelling companions were grouped about a grim memorial of the Jutland battle, a huge projectile that had struck one of the after turrets, in the doing of which it had transformed itself into a great, convoluted disc, and was now mounted as a memento of that tremendous day. And here it was I became acquainted with my Midshipmite, who looked like an angel of sixteen, bore himself like a veteran, and spoke (when his shyness had worn off a little) like a British fighting man. To him I preferred the request that he would pilot me over this great vessel, which he (blushing a little) very readily agreed to do. Thereafter, in his wake, I ascended stairways, climbed ladders, wriggled through narrow spaces, writhed round awkward corners, up and ever up. "It's rather awkward, I'm afraid, sir," said he in his gentle voice, hanging from an iron ladder with one hand and a foot, the better to address me. "You see, we never bring visitors this way as a rule--"