coated with the drift and rubbish of a thousand men's thoughts esteems
itself the open sea because the waves of all the oceans break on her
borders. To those in her midst she is terribly imposing, but they forget
that there is more than one kind of imposition. Look back upon her from
ten thousand miles, when the mail is just in at the Overseas Club, and
she is wondrous tiny. Nine-tenths of her news--so vital, so epoch-making
over there--loses its significance, and the rest is as the scuffling of
ghosts in a back-attic.

Here in Yokohama the Overseas Club has two mails and four sets of
papers--English, French, German, and American, as suits the variety of
its constitution--and the verandah by the sea, where the big telescope
stands, is a perpetual feast of the Pentecost. The population of the
club changes with each steamer in harbour, for the sea-captains swing
in, are met with 'Hello! where did you come from?' and mix at the bar
and billiard-tables for their appointed time and go to sea again. The
white-painted warships supply their contingent of members also, and
there are wonderful men, mines of most fascinating adventure, who have
an interest in sealing-brigs that go to the Kurile Islands, and somehow
get into trouble with the Russian authorities. Consuls and judges of the
Consular Courts meet men over on leave from the China ports, or it may
be Manila, and they all talk tea, silk, banking, and exchange with its
fixed residents. Everything is always as bad as it can possibly be, and
everybody is on the verge of ruin. That is why, when they have decided
that life is no longer worth living, they go down to the
skittle-alley--to commit suicide. From the outside, when a cool wind
blows among the papers and there is a sound of smashing ice in an inner
apartment, and every third man is talking about the approaching races,
the life seems to be a desirable one. 'What more could a man need to
make him happy?' says the passer-by. A perfect climate, a lovely