When an unrisky opportunity offered, one lovely summer day, when we had sounded and buoyed a tangled patch of crossings known as Hell's Half Acre, and were aboard again and he had sneaked the Pennsylvania triumphantly through it without once scraping sand, and the _A.

T.Lacey_ had followed in our wake and got stuck, and he was feeling good, I showed it to him.

It amused him.

I asked him to fire it off: read it; read it, I diplomatically added, as only he could read dramatic poetry.

The compliment touched him where he lived.