My hosts talked for rather more than three hours,
and at the end seemed ready for three hours more.
But when the lieutenant - such a big, brave, gentle giant - rose to
his feet, he delivered what seemed to me as the speech of the
evening. I remember nearly the whole of it, and it ran
some-thing in this way: - "Gentlemen - It's very good of you to
give me this dinner and to tell me all these prettythings, but
what I want you to understand - the fact is, what we want and what
we ought to get at once, is a navy - more ships - lots of 'em - "
Then we howled the top of the roof off, and I for one fell in
love with Carlin on the spot. Wallah! He was a man.
The prince among merchants bid me take no heed to the warlike
sentiments of some of the old generals.
"The sky-rockets are thrown in for effect," quoth he, "and
whenever we get on our hind legs we always express a desire to
chaw up England. It's a sort of family affair."
And, indeed, when you come to think of it, there is no other
country for the American public speaker to trample upon.
France has Germany; we have Russia; for Italy Austria is
provided; and the humblest Pathan possesses an ancestral enemy.
