The Meridian times. (Meridian, Idaho) 1909-1938, 1917-06-01
SECOND INsTALLMENT.

In the beginning OF my sketch or 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 / 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-
TEN. 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: / 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 stateroem, he always had state
| ROOM which was where 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
it bore either the initials or the in
sigma of the country he had disowned.
remember, soon after 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 or
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 nc
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 mus
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, OF
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, ant
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 tbs
Cane of Good Hope on Nolan's frs
. voyage; and it is the only thing ! ever
knew of that voyage. They hac
touched at the Cape, and had done the
civil thing with the English admira
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
windfall. Among them, as the Devi
would order, was the Lay of the Las
Minstrel" which they had all of then
heard of, but which most of them hat
never seen. / think it could not hay'
been published long. Well, nobod,
thought there could be any risk of any
Y thing national in that, though Phillips
swore old Shaw had cut out thu
tempest" from Shakespeare before
d he let Nolan have it, because he said
e 1.-The Bermudas ought to be ours and
D by Joye, should be one day." So No
3 Ian was permitted to join the circl
D one afternoon when a lot of them sa
? on deck smoking and reading aloud
: People do not do such things so .oftei
. now. but when I was young we go
, rid of q 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 know. No
, body In the circle knew line of tn
poem, only it was all magic and Dor
: der chivalry, and was ten Thousand
: years ago. Poor Nolan read steadil.
through the fifth canto, stopped min
ute and drank something, and then be
= gan, without thought of what wa
coming
Breathes there the man. with soul $
dead.
|