So in the hands of the Bolshie our hands shall at last be laid;
Deep unto deep is calling to lift the long blockade;
"No truck," we had sworn, "with murder;" but God will forget that oath,
For blood is thicker than water, but Trade is thicker than both.
O.S.
WITH THE AUXILIARY PATROL.
An Honourable Record.
Many years ago, in the reign of good Queen Victoria, a little ship sailed out of Grimsby Docks in all the proud bravery of new paint and snow-white decks, and passed the Newsand bound for the Dogger Bank. They had christened her the King George, and, though her feminine susceptibilities were perhaps a trifle piqued at this affront to her sex, it was a right royal name, and her brand-new boilers swelled with loyal fervour. She was a steam trawler—at that time one of the smartest steam trawlers afloat, and she knew it; she held her headlights very high indeed, you may be sure.
Time passed, and the winds and waters of the North Sea dealt all too rudely with the fair freshness of her exterior; she grew worn and weather-stained, and it was apparent even to the casual eye of a landsman that she had left her girlhood behind her out on the Nor'-East Rough. Some of the younger trawlers would jeeringly refer to her behind her back as "Auntie," and affected to regard her as an antediluvian old dowager, which of course was mainly due to jealousy. But she still pegged away at her work, bringing in from the Dogger week by week her cargoes of fish, regardless alike of the ravages of time and the jibes of her upstart rivals. As long as her owners were satisfied she was happy, for she cherished first and last a sense of duty, as all good ships do.