"Ah, yes."

Caesar kept on reading, and Laura continued to watch the landscape which
hurried by outside the window. After a while she exclaimed:

"O Lord, what hideous things!"

"What things?"

"Those war-ships."

Caesar looked where his sister pointed. In a roadstead brilliant with
sunlight he saw two men-of-war, black and full of cannons.

"That's the way one ought to be to face life, armed to the teeth,"
exclaimed Caesar.

"Why?" asked Laura.

"Because life is hard, and you have to be as hard as it is in order to
win."

"You don't consider yourself hard enough?"

"No."

"Well, I think you are. You are like those rough, pointed rocks on the
shore, and I am like the sea.... They throw me off and I come back."
"That is because, perhaps, when you get down to it, nothing makes any