the lunch and overheard the following conversation:

"Have you a signal man by the name of Hicks--Billy Hicks--on board?"

"Yes, what about him?"

"Well," the officer said, smiling, "we were ten miles out at sea a few
weeks ago when I noticed the signals flashing all over the heavens. I
was officer of the deck. It was about seven bells in the first watch.
I called my signal officer, told him to take down what he read." He
pulled out his notebook, still smiling and, spelling out the words,
read:

"_God this is Billy Hicks. I ain't afraid of no bloomin' man nor
devil. I ain't afraid of no Davey Jones bleedin' locker neither. I
ain't like a bawlin baby afussin' at his dad for sweeties. I doant ask
you for no favours but just one. This is it--when I strike the foretop
to-morrow let me do it with the guts of a man what is clean and God
dear God from this here day on giv me the feeling I use to have long
ago when I nelt at my mother's knee an said Our Father. Good night
dear God._"

I went out into the pantry of the wardroom, jotted down as much of
this as I could remember, and it gave me a splendid introduction to
the captain of the foretop.

The greatest problem of my life, and perhaps of any life at the age of
twenty-one, was the problem of sex instinct. I have often wondered why
that problem is discussed so meagrely. I have often wondered why, for
instance, Kipling and Frank Bullen and W. Clark Russell, in discussing