16 SUNSHINE AND SPORT IN 



certain domestic virtues of Hunyadi Janos. How 

 many women, I wonder, of any other nation would 

 so gracefully have carried off the contretemps as to 

 relieve a casual acquaintance of all embarrassment 

 Here ended our short voyage, and those who for 

 the moment had bowed to the greatest good of the 

 greatest number, all for each and each for all, re- 

 sumed the tigrine demeanour they had last favoured 

 on the Liverpool quay, and pushed and kicked 

 and scrambled until they had won clear of the 

 vessel. 



The conclusion of sea voyages has always, or 

 almost always, been linked in my memory with the 

 receipt of untoward news. On one occasion I 

 landed at Sydney to learn that a firm, in which I 

 had a financial interest, was on the verge of insol- 

 vency. On another occasion, I went ashore at 

 Aden to learn of the death of a favourite cousin. 

 This time I anticipated no such unwelcome shock, 

 for the wireless contact with both continents ought 

 to have protected us from such unpleasant surprises. 

 As it happens, the daily Bulletin is not issued 

 on the last morning, and it was not therefore until 

 we were boarded by officials at Quarantine that we 

 had news of the terrible catastrophe at San Francisco 

 the night before. During my stay in New York I 

 watched the impressive spectacle of a great nation 

 mourning its dead and giving of its boundless chanty 

 to such as remained of the living. I saw the veteran 

 Mark Twain hand back a two - hundred - pound 

 lecture fee at the Carnegie Hall, and I heard 

 announcements at the theatres of the generosity 

 with which New York's millionaires had given of 

 their millions, so eager were all to swell the relief 



