“There are regulations on flogging.... However, what is your third cause? I think that is the right way to tackle the problem--see the causes, then root them out.” “The third cause, so far as I can see, sir, is that the Service is so isolated and so specialized. Put briefly, it’s a government without opposition, with the usual result of tyranny. And in the Service we have no contact with any interests but our own--no books or pictures, no women, if you see what I mean, sir.” “No women?” “Only the physical.” “Ah! you mean we lack the refining influence!” The Captain smiled. “I shouldn’t have put it that way, sir. I mean that if men are left too long with men they are liable to become beasts.” An illustration of his point flashed across Hartington’s mind. “You know what it is, sir, after dinner in England, when the ladies are gone. It begins in talk almost at once. And, left together long enough, men become cruel.” “That’s true.” The Captain ran his tongue across his lips. “But you spoke of books and pictures.” “And plays and music, sir, and walks in the country, and games, and riding--but chiefly books and pictures, plays and music. They are the best products of civilization.” “And we live among the worst--guns, torpedoes? Is that the idea? But you can have books and pictures in the Service?” “You can have a few of your own, sir; but that’s not the same thing as meeting them at every turn, in every house. We are outside the atmosphere of----” Hartington broke off suddenly. This was a senior naval officer to whom he was speaking. Almost he had forgotten that. “Go on,” the Captain said. “The atmosphere of----”? “Outside the atmosphere of beauty,” Hartington said reluctantly. One does not wisely speak of the atmosphere of beauty to post-captains. But the Captain did not smile until he said: “You put it strangely, but I think I understand you. We are brutalized, in fact?” “No, sir, I don’t think so. If we were brutalized we should be brutes ashore and brutes consistently on board. We are neither one nor the other. It’s this--that one branch of us is starved, stunted, so that it can’t grow, and consequently the other branch develops abnormally.” “And I can see no cure for that. We have our job to do. There is very little time for anything else. Of course,” the Captain added, his words coming slowly, “when you come to think of it, our job itself is ethically indefensible.” They pondered that overwhelming statement in silence, each momently unconscious of the other’s presence. When at last Hartington met the Captain’s eyes he saw in them a strange expression, half guilty, half amused. “I’m afraid that’s true. We have probably struck bed-rock,” the Captain said, with a smile. Then, suddenly serious, he added: “That goes no further, Hartington.” “No, sir.”