The daily star-mirror. (Moscow, Idaho) 1911-1939, 1917-05-30

room, which was where a sentinel, OF
somebody on the watch, could see the
door. And whatever else he ate OF
! drank he ate or drank alone. Some
times, when the marines or sailors had
any special jollification, they were per
mitted to invite vPlain-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 a 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.
remember, soon after I 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
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
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 were common
enough in the old days, when people
| in the other hemisphere talked of the
United States as little sas 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. | re-
member it, because poor Phillips, who
was of the party, as soon as the allu-
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 l 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 DeYil
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,
1.-The Bermudas ought to be ours and,
by Jove, should be one day." So No
ian was permitted to join the circle
)ne afternoon when a lot of them sat
IN deck smoking and reading aloud.
People do not do such things so often
1ow, but when I was young we got
id of great deal of time so. Well,
20 it happened that in his turn Nolan
ook the book and read to the others;
md he read very well, as / know. No
,ody in the circle knew a line Of the
,oem, only it was all magic and bor
Ter chivalry, and was ten thousand
ears ago. Poor Nolan read steadily
through the fifth canto, stopped min
tie and drank something, and then be-
AN, without a thought of what was
oming- :
reathes there the man, with soul so {
dead
Who never to himself hath said
1t seems impossible to us that any
ody ever heard this for the first time; b
ut all these fellows did then, and b
cor Nolan himself went on, still I'M
or mechanically O
This is my own, my native land Il
Then they all saw something was 4
pay; but he expected to get through, o
suppose, turned little pale, but h
Iunged on n
hose heart hath ne'er within him
burned 81
home his footsteps he hath turned {"
-om wandering on a foreign strand?- -
such there breathe, go mark him well. :,
BY this time the men were all be- lo
de themselves, wishing there was any d
ay to make him turn over two pages; &c
1t he had not quite presence Of mind w
r that; he gagged a little, colored IL
imson, and staggered on: 10
II him no minstrel raptures swell; G,
gh though his titles, proud his name IN
undless his wealth as wish can claim, at
spite these titles, power and pelf, O'
e wretch, concentered all in SELF :.
d here the poor fellow choked, could pl
It go on, but started up, swung the pl
ok into the sea, vanished into his on
ateroom, land by Jove," said Phil he
49, I'VE did not see him for two da
,nthS again And T had tO make I'M | tn