“Well, you’ve caught one,” Lynwood said, with a smile at the phrase. “The mare, she’s bin servin’ ’is Majesty to-day, she ’as. Old army pensioner, she is.” He shook a stream of water from his oilskin cape and ran his hand over his dripping beard. “Old sailor meself, sir,” he remarked, as he picked up the reins. Lynwood settled himself among the thin cushions as the cab’s loose wheels rattled into the street. This, in his childhood’s dreams, was to have been the beginning of adventure--this “going to sea.” It was not thus he had imagined it. The books he had read had conjured up pictures of bright sunshine and blue water, of admirals who welcomed the new-comer in a fatherly manner, of petty officers whose ambition it was to teach him knots, splices, and cutlass drill. All this was to have been but a prelude to a life among friends, who would share with him glories, perils, and promotion, and whose kindliness would make all things pleasant for him in strange and gaily coloured lands. And now, looking forward, he saw none of these delights. His experience at Osborne and Dartmouth and, above all, in the training cruiser had taught him what he might reasonably expect. He had done well as a cadet. He had taken firsts in his passing-out examinations, and--for what it was worth--had been a Cadet Captain in both colleges. There was no reason why his promotion should not be as rapid as that of any of his contemporaries. But the element of romance had to be excluded--unless there were a war. Those who had lived through it had given him to understand, with a clearness that could permit of no further disillusionment, that the naval officer’s life was as mechanical and monotonous as that of a book-keeping clerk. There were drills and watches, tactical exercises and coaling. There was a discipline of iron, and a requirement, equally inelastic, of absolute efficiency. Faults were not pardoned nor weaknesses forgotten. Motive was a matter of small account, for only success and failure appeared on the final balance-sheet. This, Lynwood had come to recognize, was inevitable in a service conducted with one object alone, the object of victory in battle. Never, even in the bitterest of criticisms, had he heard one word against the Navy’s efficiency. It was a perfect machine, as inhuman as a machine, as pitiless as perfection. The object of its training was the production of a war personnel, and this implied the production of human beings who possessed certain definite qualities and in whom certain qualities were not found. If a required quality were lacking it had to be instilled; if a surplus quality were present it had to be removed. The process was often painful. Not infrequently men were broken by it, and went; or rebelled against it in their hearts, and went likewise. Many, though broken, were forced by circumstances to remain.