The Beaver herald. [volume] (Beaver, O.T. [Okla.]) 1895-1923, 1917-06-14
SECOND iNSTAlLMENT.

/
In the beginning of my sketch OF this
story. For Captain Shaw, If 1t was he,
| handed 1t to his successor in the
charge, and he to his.
The rule adopted on board the ships
| CT which | have met "The Man withou'
n Country" was, l think, transmitted
from the beginning. No mess liked to !
,aye him permanently, because his
presence cut of all talk of home or of |
the prospect of return, of politics or |
letters, of peace or % war-cut of |
have at sea. But II was always |
thought too hard that he should never !
met the rest of ny, except TO touch |
hats ana we finally sank into one sys-
TEN. He was not permitted to talk |
with the men unless nm 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: | was one. Then the captain
always asked him to dinner on Mon
day. Every mess in succession took
up the invitation In lis turn. Accord
ing to the f.ze of the ship, you had him
Mt ycar mess more or less often at
dinner. His breakfast he ate In his
own stateroom, he always had state
room, which was where a sentinel, or
somebody on the watch, could see the
door. And whatever else he ate or
drank he nte or drank alone. Some
times, when the marines or sailors had
any special jollificatlon, 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
sigma of the country he had disowned.
I remember, soon after joined the
navy, l was on shore with some of the
older officers from our ship and from
the Brandywine, 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 70 go on
Shore even though the vessel lay In port
for months, his time, Mt the best,
hung heavy; and everybody was per-
! mitted TO lend him books, IL they were
, not published in America and made no
alluslon TO 1t. 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
t 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 q great hole, because on the
back of the page of that paper there
: had been an advertisement of packet
, for New York, or scrap from the
[ presidents message. 1 say this was
the first time ever heard of this plan,
| Nhiti uilti huh thphEht h'h
{ more than enough, to do with. I re-
4 member 1t, because poor Phillips, who
: was of the party, as soon as the allu
sion to reading was made, told a story
I of something which happened at the
, Cape Of Good Hope on Nolan's first
h voyage; and 1t 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 q
y long cruise up the Indian ocean, Phil.
lips had borrowed lot of English
:. books from an officer, which, in those
days, as indeed in these, was quite O
!, windfall. Among them, as the Devil
n would order, was the Lay of the Last
\ Minstrel" which they had all of then
heard of, but which most of them had
, never seen. think 1t could not have
been published long. Well, nobody
a thought there could be any risk Of any
;. thing national in that, though Phillips
!. swore old Shaw had cut out tht
), Tempest from Shakespeare before
he let Nolan have 1t. because he said
J, "The Bermudas ought to be ours and
= by Jove, should be one day." So No
Ian was permitted to join the circle
I one afternoon when a lot of them sal
II on deck smoking and reading aloud
II People do not do such things so Otter
II now, but when / was young we go
II rid. of great deal of time so. Well
II so it happened that in his turn Nolar
II took the book and read to the others
II and he read very well, as know. No
J body in the circle knew line of the
poem, only 1t was all magic and Dor
der chivalry, and was ten thousand
years ago. Poor Nolan read steadily
through the fifth canto, stopped a min
:, ute and drank something, and then be