raight, O w

strong, a go

laugh at

e and whirlw

gfel

his white head bowed a little by weight of years, but almost with my first glance I seemed to recognise him instin

uniform of a naval captain, and we looked, all th

tain. "She's all speed and gra

y-odd years and we never launched

me I wa

d sides sweeping up in noble curves, a Super-Dreadnought complete from trucks to keelson. Yacht-like she sat the water all buoyant grace

y-big, is she?" enqui

red; the Master

nodded. "Wh

e size of a ship from the

ed the Captai

After luncheon you shall measure her if yo

seaplanes, with stories of battle and sudden death, tales of risk and hardship, of noble courag

igure of the Master Builder, in whose company I spent a never-to-be-forgotten afternoon. W

be fast?"

Dreadnought!" s

ve to speak of," added the veteran. "Se

will be enormous!

who stood, chin in hand, lost in

bigger than you thoug

is head, sighed, and took

moke!"

ps for sixty years?" I asked of

r built ships hereabouts so long ago a

," said I, "great seamen all, who fought great sh

old and wise in ships, wander up and over the mighty fabric before us. "Yes," he n

iends rather thought we had degener

quietly, "they know bet

d I, and a

singly; "but the nation that can match

kness, of guns of stupendous calibre, of new methods of defence against sneaking submarine and torpedo attack, and of devices new and strange; but of these I may neither write nor speak, because

eupon she snorted and fell suddenly a-quiver as she nosed out

f voice, free of gesture; the other, his silver hair agleam in the setting sun, a man wise with years, gentle and calm-eyed, my

for many different purposes. Here are great cargo boats growing hour by hour with liners great and small; here I saw mile on mile of battleships, cruisers, destroyers and submarines of strange design with torpedo boats of uncanny shape; tramp steam

ng, others, just begun, were only a ske

re ships, a long perspective; ships by the million ton

shall never forget, a sight I shall always associate with the stalwart figure of the Captain and