of a greedy man and a fresh herring. The ship was a symbol of man's
questing stomach long before it was a symbol of his questing soul. He
was a hungry man, not a poet, when he built the first harbour.
Luckily, the harbour made a poet of him. Sails gave him wings. He
learned to traffic for wonders. He became a traveller. He told tales.
He discovered the illusion of horizons. Perhaps, however, it is less
the sailor than the ship that attracts our imagination. The ship seems
to convey to us more than anything else a sense at once of perfect
freedom and perfect adventure.

That is why we are content to stand on the harbour stones all day and
watch anything with sails. We ourselves want to live in some such
freedom and adventure as this. We are feeding our appetite for liberty
as we gaze hungrily after the ships making their way out of harbour
into the sea.




III



THE BETTING MAN

If The Panther wins the Derby,[He didn't] as most people apparently
expect him to do, his victory will carry more weight among frequenters
of race-courses as an argument for Socialism than any that has yet
been invented. For The Panther is a Government-bred horse, born and
brought up in defiance of the _laissez-faire_ principles of Mr Harold