Williams news., 1917-06-07
SECOND INSTALLMENT.

If I had only preserved the whole of this paper, there would be no break in the beginning of my sketch of this story. For Captain Shaw, if it was he, handed it to his successor in the charge, and he to his.
 The rule adopted on board the ships on which have met "The Man without a Country" was, I think, transmitted from the beginning. No mess liked to have him permanently, because his presence cut off all talk of home or of the prospect of return, of politics or letters, of peace or of war-cut off more than half the talk men like to have at sea. But it was always thought too hard that he should never meet the rest of us, except to touch hats, and we finally sank into one sys- tenn. He was not permitted to talk with the men unless an officer was by. With officers he had unrestrained in- tercourse, as far as they and he chose. But he grew shy, though he had favor ties: I was one. Then the captain always asked him to dinner on Mon day. Every mess in succession took up the invitation in its turn. Accord ing to the size of the ship, you had him at your mess more or less often at dinner. His breakfast he ate in his own stateroom, he always had a state room, which was where a sentinel, or somebody on the watch, could see the door. And whatever else he ate or drank he ate or drank alone. Some times, when the marines or sailors had any special jollification, they were per mitted to invite 'Plain-Buttons," as they called him. Then Nolan was sent with some officer, and the men were forbidden to speak of home while he was there. They called him "Plain- Buttons," because, while he always chose to wear regulation army uni form, he was not permitted to wear the army button, for the reason that 1t bore either the initials or the in signia of the country he had disowned.
 I remember, soon after I joined the navy, was on shore with some of the older officers from our ship and from the Brandywtne, which we had met at Alexandria. We had leave to make a party and go up to Cairo and the Pyra- mids. As we logged along some of the gentlemen fell to talking about No Ian, and someone told the system which was adopted from the first about his books and other reading. As he was almost never permitted to go on shore, even though the vessel lay in port for months, his time, at the best, D1r mitted to lend him books, if they were not published in America and made no allusion to it. These were common enough in the old days, when people in the other hemisphere talked of the United States as little as we do of Paraguay. He had almost all the for eign papers that came into the ship, sooner or later; only somebody must go over them first, and cut out any advertisement or stray paragraph that alluded to America. Right in the midst of one of Napoleon's battles, or one of Canning's speeches, poor Nolan would find great hole, because on the back of the page of that paper there had been an advertisement of packet for New York, or a scrap from the presidents message. say this was the first time ever heard of this plan, which afterwards had enough, and more than enough, to do with. I re member it, because poor Phillips, who sion to reading was made, told story of something which happened at the Cape of Good Hope on Nolan's first voyage; and it is the only thing ever knew of that voyage. They had touched at the Cape, and had done the civil thing with the English admiral and the fleet, and then, leaving for long cruise up the Indian ocean, Phil
 lips had borrowed a lot of English books from an officer. which, in those days, as indeed in these, was quite a windfall. Among them, as the Devil would order, was the 'Lay of the Last Minstrel" which they had all of them heard of, but which most of them had never seen. I think it could not have been published long. Well, nobody thought there could be any risk of any thing national in that, though Phillips swore old Shaw had cut out the Tempest" from Shakespeare before he let Nolan have it, because he said, ''The Bermudas ought to be ours and, by love, should be one day." So No Ian was permitted to join the circle one afternoon when lot of them sat on deck smoking and reading aloud. People do not do such things so often now, but when I was young we got rid of great deal of time so. Well, so it happened that in his turn Nolan took the book and read to the others i; and he read very well, as know. No body in the circle knew line of the poem, only it was all magic and bor- der chivalry, and was ten thousand years ago. Poor Nolan read steadily through the fifth canto, stopped min pfa opd dronty copnafbipo and tbou ha