the stomach as if it had been of cornstarch softness and consistency.'

Much the same, of course, may be said of books and the amount of study they require. Some pieces of writing are like the 'challot,' while others are quickly and easily disposed of. There can be no doubt, however, as regards the general value of the Fletcherizing process. It is thus that men have always disciplined themselves and attained to mental strength. We all know how it was with Lincoln, for example, and how it likewise was with Franklin. What seemed the early disadvantages of these men - their lack of many books became their best and most effective means of education. They digested thoroughly the little literary food they had. In the scanty library of Franklin's father was a copy of Plutarch's Lives which the youthful Benjamin 'read abundantly,' chewing its chapters many times. His real education began, however, when he met with 'an odd volume of the Spectator.' He bought it: read it over and over, and was much delighted with it. Moreover, he adds in his Autobiography, 'I thought the writing excellent, and wished if possible to imitate it.' Whereupon he began the wholesome process of reading certain of the articles, putting them aside, and, after a few days, endeavoring to reproduce them in his own words, following out the general sentiments as he remembered them.

There was education for you! And it was the kind of education which the wisest nearly always have pursued in building up a wholesome digestion and educating taste as well as style. Demosthenes, for instance, to give a classic instance, is said to have copied out the entire History of Thucydides six times, in order thoroughly to familiarize himself with the matter and the manner of the great historian.

Moreover, Fletcherizing such as this

is not only good for the digestion, curing flatulency and building up substantial tissue, but it promotes, as well, the pleasures of the palate. One gets the whole taste out of the food absorbed. Count Rumford knew and stated this fact, too, before the days of our modern prophet. In his essay on Food he wrote, "The idea of occupying a person a great while, and affording him much pleasure at the same time, in eating a small quantity of food, may perhaps appear ridiculous to some; but those who consider the matter attentively will perceive that it is very important.'

But its importance from a dietary point of view is incommensurate with what it has to teach us in regard to the joys of literature. One need not follow Ruskin's advice and read 'word by word, and syllable by syllable, and even letter by letter'; but there is a satisfaction in dwelling upon sentences and tasting their hidden meanings, with which the passing pleasures of the palate cannot be compared.

This truth is one of which we were reminded in that delicately shaded little story entitled 'Nothing,' which appeared at some time in the Atlantic. A blind woman was made to speak, and what she said revealed the depth and clearness of the author's insight into things of this kind. Her words were these, and they may be earnestly recommended to many people who imagine that they see: 'By taking plenty of time I managed to learn some books by heart: and I found it was much more interesting to sit and think about one paragraph for an hour, than to read twenty pages. Even a few words are enough. Take "Be still, and know that I am God"; or, "Acquaint now thyself with Him and be at peace." There's no end to those sentences.'

Nor is there. But, at the present time, the sad fact is that many people hardly make a beginning on them.

I

THERE has come upon us, suddenly, one of those inexplicable lulls which make the experienced seafarer in the Mediterranean recall bygone voyages out East. It is as if the ship had run abruptly into some sultry and airless chamber of the ocean, a chamber whose cobalt roof has shut down tight, and through which not a breath is moving. The smoke from the funnel, of a sulphurous bronze color, even while our trail yet lies somnolent in a long smear on the horizon, now goes straight to the zenith. The iron bulwarks are as hot as hand can bear, as the westering sun glows full upon the beam. Under the awnings the troops lie gasping on their rubber sheets, enduring silently and uncomprehendingly, like dumb animals.

Far ahead, the escort crosses and recrosses our course. Still farther ahead, a keen eye can detect a slight fraying of the taut blue line of the horizon. Signals break from the escort and are answered from our bridge. I turn to a sergeant who is shambling to and fro by the machine-room door, and inform him that Port Said is in sight, and that he will be in harbor in an hour or so. And then, just as suddenly as we entered, the door of that heated chamber of the sea opens and we pass out into a

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warm humid wind. The wind and the news wake everybody. The soldiers, who have encamped on our after-deck during the voyage, suddenly display a feverish activity. Rations are packed, rifles are cleaned, and I am in the full tide of popular favor because I permit oil-reservoirs to be replenished in the machine-room and furnish those priceless fragments of old emery cloth which give such a delectable and silvery gloss to the bolts. Later, I am so popular that I could almost stand for Parliament, for I tell the sergeant that each man can fill his water-bottle with icedwater. Which they proceed to do at once, so that said water gets red-hot before the moment of disembarkation!

But take a look at these men on our after-deck while we are coming up to Port Said. You have never seen them before and you will not see them again, for they are bound for Bagdad and beyond. They are very representative, for they are of all ages, races, and regiments. They are going to join units which have been transferred. Three were hours in the water when their ship was torpedoed. Several have come overland across France and Italy, and got most pleasantly hung up at entrancing cities on the way. Others have come out of hospitals and trenches in Macedonia and France and Flanders.

They are Irish, Scottish, Welsh, and English. The sergeant, now thumbing a worn pocket-book, has seen service in India, China, Egypt, and France. Behind him, on the hatch, is a boy of eighteen who wears the uniform of the most famous regiment in the British Army. He is small for his age, and he has a most engaging smile. When I asked him how on earth he got into the Army he explained that he had 'misriprisinted his age.' He has a chum, a gaunt Highlander, who scarcely opened his lips all the voyage, and who sat on the hatch sewing buttons on their clothes, darning their stockings, and reading a religious pamphlet entitled Doing it Now.

There is another sergeant, too, a young gentleman going home to get a commission. He is almost to be described as one apart, for he holds no converse with the others. He walks in a mincing way, he has a gold watch with a curb-chain on one wrist, a silver identification plate and a silver slavebangle from Saloniki on the other, and an amethyst ring on one of his fingers. As the Chief Engineer said to me one day, he needed only a spear and a ring through his nose to be a complete fighting man. However, in this war it is unwise to make snap judgments. I understand that this young gentleman has an aptitude for certain esoteric brain-work of vast use in artillery. He never goes near the firing-line at all. Our young friend Angus MacFadden has that job. When the young gentleman with the slave-bangle and goldmounted fountain-pen and expensive Kodak has figured out certain calculations in his dug-out office, Angus, who resembles an extremely warlike bellhop, with his gaunt Highland chum beside him, will scramble up out of his trench, make a most determined rush toward a given point, and, in short, complete the job, whatever it may be.

Now it is all very well to talk about the triumphs of mind over matter, but my interest is not with the young gentleman at all. He may carry Omar Khayyam in his kit. He may call the 'Shropshire Lad' 'topping poetry.' He may (as he does) borrow Swinburne from my book-shelf. My interest is with Angus and his chums. I look out of my machine-room window and watch them getting ready to disembark. They are very amusing, with their collapsible aluminium pannikins, their canvas wash-basins and buckets, their fold-up shaving tackle and telescopic tooth-brushes.

There is one tough old private of the Old Army among them. He has the Egyptian and two South African medals. He never seems to have any kit to bother him. I see him in the galley, peeling potatoes for their dinner, deep in conversation with the pantryman and smoking an Irish clay. He knows all the twenty-one moves, as we say. Then there is a very young man who reads love-stories all the time, a rosy-cheeked lad with the Distinguished Service Order ribbon on his tunic.

Another, almost as young, is tremendously interested in refrigeration. He comes into my engine-room and stares in rapt incredulity at the snow on the machine. 'I don't see why it does n't melt!' he complains, as if he had a grievance. 'How do you freeze? if it isn't a rude question.'

I explain briefly how we utilize the latent heat of reëvaporation peculiar to certain gaseous media, in order to reduce the temperature. He turns on me with a rush of frankness and bursts out, 'But, you know, that's all Greek to me!' Well, I suggest, his soldiering's all Greek to me, come to that. He laughs shortly, with his eyes on the ever-moving engines, and says he supposes so. By and by he begins to talk

of his experiences in Macedonia. He thinks the sea is beautiful, after the bare hot gulches and ravines. He is so fair that the sun has burned his face and knees pink instead of brown. I asked him what he was doing before the war, and he said his father had a seedfarm in Essex and he himself was learning the business.

Meanwhile we have arrived at Port Said. The engines stop and go astern violently, and the pilot comes alongside in a boat and climbs. the ropeladder. Just ahead is the breakwater, with a couple of motor patrols keeping guard over the fairway. Our escort puts on speed and goes in, for her job with us is done. She has gone in to coal, and she will be ready in a few hours to take another transport out. She and her sisters are like us they are never through. The big ships may lie for days, or even weeks, in harbor. We small fry have to hurry. Back and forth we ply without ceasing. Sometimes we run ashore in our haste, and so make less speed. Sometimes we smash into each other in the dark, and have to stagger back to port and refit with all possible expedition. Sometimes, too, we go out and never come back, and nobody save the authorities and our relatives hears anything about it. To what end? Well - and herein lies my interest in those soldiers of the King on the after-deck the one ultimate object we have in view is to get Master Angus MacFadden and his chums into that front-line trench, to keep them there, warm and fed, and fully supplied with every possible assistance when they climb over the parapet to make the aforesaid rush. Everything else, when you come to think of it, is subordinate to that.

The ship goes at half-speed now past the breakwater, a long gray finger pointing northwards from the beach. Half-way along we pass the De Les

seps statue on its high pedestal, the right hand flung out in a grandiose gesture toward the supreme achievement of his life. The warm wind from the westward is sending up the sea to break in dazzling white foam on the yellow sand below the pink and blue and brown bathing-huts. The breakwater is crowded with citizens taking the air, for the walks of Port Said are restricted and flavored with the odors of Arabian domesticity. We pass on, and the hotels and custom-house buildings come into view. All around are the transients of the ocean, anchored and for a moment at rest. Past the Canal building we steam, a pretentious stucco affair with three green-tiled domes and deep Byzantine galleries. Past also Navy House, a comely white building in the Venetian style, recalling the Doge's Palace - an illusion heightened by the fleet of patrols anchored in front, busily getting ready to go out to work.

And then we stop, and manœuvre, and go astern; tugs whistle imperiously, motor-boats buzz around us, ropes are hurriedly ferried across to buoys and quays, and we are made fast and pulled into our berth alongside of an immense vessel which has come from the other side of the world with frozen meat to feed Master Angus and his chums. But by this time it is dark. The ochreous sheen on the sky behind Port Said is darkening to purple and violet, the stars are shining peacefully over us, and the sergeant comes to ask for a lantern by which to finish packing his kit.

It has been warm during the day, but now it is stifling. We are, as I said, close alongside a great ship. She extends beyond us and towers above us, and even the warm humid breeze of Port Said in August is shut out from us. Up from below comes a suffocating stench of hot bilge. The ship is invaded by a swarm of Arab cargo-men,

who begin immediately to load us from our neighbor. Cargo lights, of a ghastly blue color, appear at the hatchways. Angus and his chums take up their kits and fall in on the bridge-deck. Officers hurry to and fro. Hatches are taken off, and the cold air of the holds comes up in thin wisps of fog into the tropic night. Winches rattle. Harsh words of French and Arabic commingle with the more intelligible shouts of the ship's officers. All night this goes on. All night proceeds this preposterous traffic in frozen corpses, amid the dim blue radiance of the cargo-clusters. Hundreds upon hundreds of frozen corpses!

I go off watch at eight and, seated in a room like a Turkish bath, I try to concentrate on the letters which have come over the sea. I am seized with a profound depression, arising, I suppose, from the bizarre discrepancy between the moods communicated by the letters and my own weariness. Most letters are so optimistic in tone. They clap one on the back and give one breezy news of the flowers in New Jersey gardens, of the heat in New Orleans, of bombs in London and reunions in English houses. All very nice; but I have to get up at two, and the thermometer over my bunk is now registering a hundred Fahrenheit. An electric fan buzzes and snaps in the corner and seems only to make the air hotter. An Arab passes in the alleyway outside and calls to some one named Achmet in an unmelodious howl. (All male Arabs are named Achmet apparently.)

I sit in my pajamas, with the letters in my hand, and wonder how long it is going to last. Another week or so and we shall have had two years of it. Most of us have gone home on leave. Counting the commander, there are let me see-four of us left of the original crowd. It is over a year since I applied for leave. Nothing will come of it. I look into the future and see myself, a

gray elderly failure, still keeping a sixhour shift on a Mediterranean transport, my life spent, my friends and relatives all dead, Angus and his chums gone west, and a new generation coming out, with vigorous appetites for fresh provisions.

And then the door opens and lets in a slight uniformed figure with a grip in his hand and a familiar smile on his face. Lets in also liberty, freedom, payday, England, Home and Beauty. It is my relief, arrived at last!

My kitten, a sandy little savage known as O'Henry, jumps up and begins to make friends. O'Henry is stroked and tickled, and Tommy looks up at me with his old tolerant, bland, imperturbable smile.

'You, of all people!' I remark, looking at him inanely.

'Aye, they sent me out,' he affirms. "They told me you were here. How's things?'

The others go away, still smiling, and I shut the door. For this young chap, who has come across Europe to relieve me, is an old shipmate. We were on the Merovingian. We have been many voyages to Rio and the Plates. We were always chums. In some obscure fashion, we got on. Tommy is North Country-dry, taciturn, reticent, slow to make friends. A hot-air merchant makes him restive and he