never now be numbered among the saints, but, happily for us, he was not
destined to be found among the martyrs.

He has said that in the darkest hours of his struggle he had no one to
support him save King Edward. Society was against him; half the
Admiralty was crying for his blood; the politicians wavered from one
side to the other; only the King stood fast and bade him go on with a
good heart. When he emerged from this tremendous struggle his hands may
not have been as clean as the angels could have wished; but the British
Navy was no longer scattered over the pleasant waters of the earth, was
no longer thinking chiefly of its paint and brass, was no longer a
pretty sight from Mediterranean or Pacific shores--it was almost the
dirtiest thing to be seen in the North Sea, and quite the deadliest
thing in the whole world as regards gunnery.

This was Lord Fisher's superb service. He foresaw and he prepared. Not
merely the form of the Fleet was revolutionized under his hand, but its
spirit. The British Navy was baptized into a new birth with the pea-soup
of the North Sea.

When this great work was accomplished he ordered a ship to be built
which should put the Kiel Canal out of business for many years. That
done, and while the Germans were spending the marks which otherwise
would have built warships in widening and deepening this channel to the
North Sea, Lord Fisher wrote it down that war with Germany would come in
1914, and that Captain Jellicoe would be England's Nelson.

From that moment he lost something of the hard and almost brutal
expression which had given so formidable a character to his face. He
gave rein to his natural humour. He let himself go; quoted more freely