THE REGRET

THE END OF THE WORLD




FIRST AND LAST




On Weighing Anchor


Personally I should call it "Getting It up," but I have always seen it
in print called "weighing anchor"--and if it is in print one must bow to
it. It does weigh.

There are many ways of doing it. The best, like all good things, has
gone for ever, and this best way was for a thing called a capstan to
have sticking out from it, movable, and fitted into its upper rim, other
things called capstan--bars. These, men would push singing a song, while
on the top of the capstan sat a man playing the fiddle, or the flute, or
some other instrument of music. You and I have seen it in pictures. Our
sons will say that they wish they had seen it in pictures. Our sons'
sons will say it is all a lie and was never in anything but the
pictures, and they will explain it by some myth or other.

Another way is to take two turns of a rope round a donkey-engine, paying