eBooks Base 2000

The letter began without preamble:
"We made this port--Genoa--last night. All day we have been discharging
cargo. Half my crew has gone ashore, set on liquoring and wenching after
the manner of unregenerate sailor-men all the world over. The other half
follows their bad example to-morrow, as we shall be lying idle in honour
of the Christmas festival. On board discipline is as strict as I know how
to make it, but ashore my hand is lifted off them. So long as they turn
up on time they are free to follow their fancy, even though it lead them
to smutty places. My own fancies don't happen to lie that way, for which
I in nowise praise myself. It is an affair of absence of inclination
rather than overmuch active virtue. I am really no better than they,
seeing I yield to the only temptation which takes me--the temptation to
write to you. I have resisted it times out of number since I bade you
good-bye at The Hard. But Christmas-night turns one a bit soft and
craving for sight and touch of those who belong to one.


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