140 THE CO:\IPLETE SPORTSMAN 



interest in intensive gardening or philately; 

 grey-headed Rear- Admirals of the Blue wasted 

 upon their wives or domestics that wealth of 

 cosmopolitan invective which they had labori- 

 ously acquired in various parts of the world in 

 the course of a hectic and successful naval 

 career. Imprecations that had sent a shudder 

 of apprehension rippling from stem to stern of 

 a British battleship spent themselves harm- 

 lessly upon the hardened ears of devoted help- 

 meet or female retainer; the rich beauty of a 

 lurid vocabulary that had been the envy of 

 many a quarter-deck was lost upon the jobbing 

 gardener, while objurgations that had driven 

 able-bodied seamen to cling in terror to the aft 

 hatchways left the boot-boy comparatively cold. 

 Thus, thwarted at every turn, hemmed in by 

 the narrow boundaries of parochial life, with 

 no outlet for his energies, no safety-valve for 

 those eccentricities of temper that he had cul- 

 tivated so assiduously in every corner of the 

 globe, the retired official became a prey to those 

 morbid self- analytical thoughts which, fostered 

 by periodical attacks of gout, and liberally 

 stimulated wdth doses of rare old tawny port at 

 two shillings the bottle, led often enough to a 

 premature and untimely decease. Major- 

 Generals perished of suppressed passion before 

 they had reached seventy; Admirals exploded 



