these new friends, looked up their origin, meaning, and pronunciation.  I was appointed bodyservant to the paymaster of the ship, a bucolic old Bourbon of the most pronounced aristocracy.  This excused me from military and naval duty, and I was privileged to wear plain clothes.  I attached myself to a small group of pietists called Plymouth Brethren, orthodox theologians, literalists in interpretation of the Scriptures and exceedingly straight-laced in their morality.  They were fine Bible students, indeed, Bible experts.  This was a great joy to me at first, but the atmosphere to a red-blooded, jubilant nature like mine was rather stifling after a while.  I was fond of a good story and was full of Irish folklore and fairy stories, and I noticed my brethren did not relish my outbursts of laughter.  It was explosive, spontaneous and hearty, but not contagious among them.  Their faces assumed a rather pained expression, a kind of notice of emotion that a sense of humour and religious beliefs occupied different compartments in the human mind.  It was intimated to me that such “frivolousness” was out of kelter with the profession of a Christian.  It was merely by accident that I pulled out of a shelf in the library “Adam Bede” by George Eliot.  When I was discovered eagerly devouring its contents under the glare of the fighting lamp one night after the crew had “piped down,” I was upbraided for spending such precious time on such “worldly trash.”

“Suppose the Lord should come now and find you reading that; what would you say to Him?”

My reply added to their sorrow.

“I should say, ‘Begorra, Yer Honour, it’s a bully good story!’”

The judgment of my brethren was that there was good stuff in me for a Christian if I had only been born somewhere else, a judgment I could not be expected to agree with.  My disagreement with these men on various lines was no barrier to my participation in their propaganda.  There was only one thing in the world to do—­get men converted.  Each man in this small group picked out another man as a subject of prayer and solicitation and persuasion.  At our weekly meetings we reported on our work.  Then we worked for each other.  Of course, I was a subject of prayer myself.  When these men shook hands in parting, they usually said, “If the Lord tarry,” for the Lord was expected to come at any moment.  This they could not get into my speech or mind.  As I looked around me, I got the idea that there was a good deal of work to be done before the Lord came, and I put emphasis rather on the work than on the expectation.  The ship was a beehive of activity, not merely the activity of warlike discipline or preparation, but social activity.  Of course, this activity was largely for the officers.  We had to go ashore for most of ours, and the social activity of the rank and file was rather of a questionable character ashore, but the officers had their dinners, their dances, and their afternoon receptions.