The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1917-05-17

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
sigma of the country he had disowned.
L remember, soon after 1 Joined the
navy, 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 to go on
shore, even though the vessel lay in port
for months, his time, at the best,
hung heavy; and everybody was per-
mitted to lend him books, if they were
not published in America and made no
alluSiOn to it. These We're 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 a great hole, because on the
back of the page of that paper there
had been an advertisement of a packet
for New York, or a scrap from the
presidents message. l say this was
the first time ever heard of this plan,
which afterwards l had enough, and
more than enough, to do with. l re-
member it, because poor Phillips, who
was Of the party, as soon as the allu-
sion to reading was made, told a 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 a
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. l 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 Jove, should be one day." So No
Ian was permitted to join the circle
one afternoon when a lot of them sat
on deck smoking and reading aloud.
People do not do such things so often
now, but when 1 was young we got
rid Of a great deal of time so. Well,
so it happened that in his turn Nolan
took the book and read to the others;
and he read very well, as I know. No
body in the circle knew a 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 a min
ute and drank something, and then be-
gan, without q thought of what was
coming
Second installment next W, eF.)