"Yes."

"Then what are you doing here?" She stamped her small foot and spoke as if he were a naughty child. "Go back at once!"

"Will you go up to the boats then?" he demanded. Something he read in her face seemed to steady him.

"No. I shall wait here-for you." "Then I shall take you on deck," said Jack Oswald determinedly.

There was a moment's pause. Then the girl spoke, so low her voice was almost a whisper:

"Do you really love me-still?" "I have loved you always." "Then show it," she said fearlessly. "And go back below-for me."

The tense lines of the man's mouth relaxed. His arms went round her roughly, and for a second he held her close, her head nestling against his coat collar. Then he kissed her, and the color leapt to her face like a flame. Next minute he swung himself down the ladder again, only calling to mehitherto unheeded-as he went.

"You must look after her if I can't. And unlace those boots of yours, old fellow-now!"

My nerves were a little out of order, and I suggested to my companion a prompt return on deck. She remarked with serene unconcern that I might go if I liked, but that she should stay where she was. I remember some slight annoyance over this at the time. She followed up her expressed intention by seating herself calmly on the grating, where the grease spoilt her frock. Of course, it was folly pure and simple, but she declined to heed me at all. So she remained on that upper engine-room platform waiting stilly for whatever fate should send her, to be met together with her lover below. Some women are made like that-the best of them. I also stayed there, because I had been given charge of the first girl who had ever made me realize

that love was a real thing. Also Jack Oswald was my friend.

It was uncommonly dull sitting there halfway up the engine-room by the side of the main steam-pipe with one's thoughts of what was about to happen for company. My predominant desire was for a smoke, and I had left my matches in the cabin. The steamgauge by the starting-gear, with its stupid staring dial, irritated me senselessly. Thirty of the forty minutes allowed by the captain had passed, and I seemed to hear a dull roar above the noise on deck; probably it was fancyit might have been breakers. Nora Graham's face was white and drawn. I remember reflecting that women never look their best at sea. In fact, I came to the conclusion that they ought not to go there at all.

Suddenly without warning, just as the strain of waiting was becoming very bad, the electric light sprang out again, and blessed rays of wholesome brightness flashed over the polished surfaces of crossheads and levers. There followed a hearty shout up the speaking-tube, and the sharp welcome ting of the indicator from the bridge. Huge shafts gradually revolved, and again the longed-for whirr of the propeller vibrated through the big ship. Above the slow clank of the moving machinery a faint cheer from on deck penetrated to the engine-room depths below. The Queen of England was saved.

A tattered figure ran triumphantly up a ladder, and Nora Graham rose quickly to her feet. A very dirty hand went recklessly round the thin white dress, and left an oily stain there. A grubby pair of lips smudged a soft cheek as Oswald kissed his girl for the second time that night.

"Don't, Jack!" she cried in alarm. "Someone will see us."

He kissed her again, and I withdrew. It was only what other men are al

ways doing to other girls, but the circumstances were unusual, and I was not needed there at the moment. So I joined certain jubilant shadows that danced about wildly behind the smokestack on the streaming deck-till someone suggested an adjournment to the saloon for champagne. I looked over the side of the ship, and I never want to be quite so close to that portion of the Balearic Isles again. It does not look healthy from the sea, but thanks to those fellows below in the engine-room-and above all to a slender white figure who had kept their chief there-the outline of the land was rapidly growing more indistinct. A little later the skipper joined us at the table, and wiped his brow. Then he called sharply to the steward:

"Take my compliments to the second engineer, and ask him if he can safely spare a few minutes. Tell him to come here just as he is."

When Jack appeared, which he did with manifest reluctance, it was a curious scene to see those whiteshirted, high-collared men and daintily dressed women, cheering him with unrestrained excitement. He partook modestly of a whisky-and-soda, and kept his back turned with care to that corner of the saloon where Colonel Graham stood on a seat and shouted. A retired Indian Commissioner proposed a general testimonial, and proceeded to draft it on the spot. Miss Nora had managed to squeeze up close to the hero of the hour, and her eyes shone enchantingly.

After the hubbub had somewhat subsided, the gentleman with the testimonial inquired weightily of the skipper the name of their preserver.

"Mr. J. Oswald," replied the captain with cordial interest.

"The Honorable John Oswald," corLongman's Magazine.

rected a girl's clear voice, though the owner of the voice was breathlessly rosy at the moment.

A sudden shrill squeak betrayed the presence of my revered aunt. She burst through the amazed throng of passengers, and I heard Colonel Graham say, "Good Lord!" quite distinctly.

Then it was that the second engineer turned with a quick movement and caught his sweetheart's hand brazenly before them all, in a tight grasp, as if resolved to keep her against all comers. Explanations occurred tumultuously, and everybody talked at once. And the parental blessing that eventually followed was public, but not perfunctory. In fact, it made a very prettyromance, and the passengers never ceased to discuss it all the remainder of the voyage home to Southampton. Personally, I used to visit the engineers' quarters and listen quite patiently while Jack discoursed on the perfect nature of woman. Though it has never been my own fortune to. win the love of a girl, yet I understand a little now what such love must be worth since I have looked into Nora's dark eyes and seen there the happiness which had come.

The last time I saw Jack was in Piccadilly, after the honeymoon.

"It is just the best thing on earth," he said, in answer to my inquiries, "to be married to the woman you love." Then, such is the inconsistency of human nature, he added almost regretfully, "But I have had to cut my engineering."

"Poor chap!" said I.

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened to us all if the lady, who is now the Honorable Mrs. John Oswald, had acted differently that night.

Arthur H. Henderson.

The Editor of the National Review having asked me to give an account of the free breakfasts supplied to the poorest of the children in the Birmingham Elementary Schools, I gladly avail myself of the opportunity thus offered me of possibly doing something to forward a movement in which I take great interest.

These free breakfasts in Birmingham have long passed the experimental stage, and are now being provided on settled lines. They were commenced experimentally nearly five years ago with a single school, recommended as the poorest in the city. The experiment proved quite satisfactory, and in the following February the system was extended, practically without change, to eleven other schools, selected in order of poverty. Latterly fourteen in all have been included. The attendance in winter has been about 1700, and in summer 900; the average being about 1300, over a school year of, say, 220 days. It seems to be agreed on all hands that the provision of breakfasts for the smaller number in summer is just as necessary as for the larger number in winter.

The diet, which, with a view to securing the most suitable and nutritious food, was arranged in consultation with a medical friend who is an authority on the subject, consists of a cup of hot cocoa, made from Fry's essence of cocoa, half a pint of sterilized (skimmed) milk, and sugar. The solid food consists of 5oz. of bread known in the trade as "seconds," but to my mind better than the more expensive and whiter variety; the bread being cut into two slices, each about 4-in. thick, the one spread with butter, the

other with jam. In quantity this is found to be as much as the bigger children require, and more than the little ones can take. For the smaller children the ration is divided according to the judgment of the teacher or caretaker superintending the particular breakfast, and the bread cut thinner.

Skimmed milk will strike many people as an inferior article of diet; but that does not appear to be the medical opinion. According to that opinion, as I gather it, all the most important nutritive elements remain in the milk after the cream has been removed; and those that the cream contains may just as well, and, as it happens, far more cheaply, be supplied in the shape of butter. While new milk must be obtained either from the immediate neighborhood or at great cost of carriage, owing to its bulk, butter is easily transferred from comparatively distant parts of the country or of the world.

There appears to be practically no desire for change in this diet from one year's end to another. At first sight this is somewhat surprising, till one reflects that, though we all seem to require constant change in the midday and evening meals, yet, for some inscrutable reason, we are many of us, perhaps most of us, content to eat and drink the very same things at breakfast, day after day, year in year out. Apparently it is the same with the children.

The medical authority that advised the diet also made it a great point that the children should sit comfortably to their meal, and this, by the ready cooperation of the school officials, has in all cases been easily arranged.

The method of distribution is as fol

lows: The bread is delivered direct from the flour mills. The butter and jam from other centres; in each case in proportion to the numbers fixed for each school. The cocoa is made at the depôt of the milk merchant; who, in the last heating of the milk for sterilization, adds the cocoa essence and the sugar (with which he has been provided), and supplies the cocoa thus made at the ordinary price of sterilized milk. From each school a boy is sent with a tin-can mounted on a perambulator, and fetches away the quantity allotted to his school, where it arrives as hot as can be desired. These boys receive 2d. or 3d. per journey according to the length of the journey; and there is competition for the office. At each school the caretaker, generally assisted by his wife, receives the provisions, cuts and spreads the bread with butter and jam, and deals out the breakfast, afterwards "washing up" the cups and cans. For this an average payment of 18. a day, or 58. a week, is made. There is no school on Saturdays.

I have not yet spoken of the part, the most important part of all, played by the teachers in the scheme. With them it rests in the first place to report on the numbers requiring the meal in each school, to select the recipients from day to day, to give out the tickets, to test the quality of the food, to make complaints if necessary, and generally to superintend. All this work is voluntarily and eagerly undertaken by them, and performed sympathetically and yet with judgment. They seem balanced between the desire to help the children, and the desire to prevent abuse of the charity. Partly in order to prevent such abuse, and partly to spread the work over as many schools as possible, the numbers fixed for each school are somewhat below the estimated requirements. In each school there are, first, a certain number of

chronic cases always requiring help, children of drunkards and of the hopelessly idle; then there are the cases of children whose parents are temporarily out of work, and who want breakfasts for a time, but, during that time, want them every day; and, thirdly, those children whose parents habitually earn insufficient or precarious wages; these require occasional breakfasts. But it is purposely arranged that the provision shall be slightly insufficient. The result is that there is always competition for the breakfasts, and the intimate knowledge possessed by the teachers of the children's circumstances is supplemented by the still more intimate knowledge possessed by the children of each other's circumstances, Thus an impostor is immediately informed against. "Please, Miss. her father's got work and mine hasn't," is the sort of shape the information takes, and there is seldom any difficulty in arriving at the true merits. It may seem rather a barbarous way of proceeding; often children who expect a meal, and genuinely want a meal, have to go without; but the total provision is limited, and it is of primary importance that only the really needy should be supplied. I believe this object is attained very perfectly. But everything depends on the teachers, of whose part in the work I am unable to speak in adequate terms of praise. If teachers elsewhere are like the teachers in Birmingham, then whatever is contributed either from public or private means, the most important contribution will still be made by these ladies and gentlemen, who in all cases give their services gratuitously.

In addition, a clerk's time, on the accounts, to the extent of a day a month; a factory foreman's, a day a month also, and two days of an unskilled operative's time, complete the account under the head of supervision.

Management in any proper sense there is none, and there has been none since the experimental year. None is required. The system is essentially automatic, and beyond actual payments to those engaged in the daily work of distribution; renewals, repairs, and interest on first cost of plant; and the clerk's and workmen's time abovementioned, there are no dead charges. No manager or superintendent is employed at all; and to have no manager at all must, I think, be admitted better even than possessing the "heaven-born manager" referred to in this connection by a witness before the Physical Deterioration Committee.

The net result, in figures, of the system I have been describing—it is to be feared in trivial detail-is that it is possible to claim that, of every £100 total outlay, £84 reaches the children's mouths in the shape of the best possible food. I have seen the last published accounts of the free dinner scheme to which the witness above mentioned was referring. The dead charges are 50 per cent. In other words, out of every £100 outlay only £50 reaches the children; and in earlier years the proportion has been even less favorable. I do not quote these figures by way of adverse criticism-I do not even say that under the conditions they could be greatly improved-but in order that I may use them, as I shall use them later on, to enforce my view that, if only a single free meal is given, that meal should be breakfast, not dinner.

I now come to details of cost; and as the average school dealt with requires on the average almost exactly 100 meals per day of the school year of 220 days, it is convenient to take the school as a unit; giving the cost of a single meal for one whole school. The

1 Children equivalent to 820,000 actual meals have been fed; the higher number being due to the caretakers or teachers occasionally dividing

1

amount works out as follows: Milk, 322d.; bread, 28d.; butter, 12d.; jam, 11d.; cocoa, 5d.; sugar, 3d.; or a little over .91d. per head. About 303,000 of such meals have been given during the last year. In addition to these outgoings there is an average payment of 22d. to the boy who wheels the perambulator, and 18. to the caretaker; which completes the expenditure on current account. The initial cost of plant for each school is just £5, or 18. per head (I omit the details here), and the plant is kept in good repair, with renewals, for 15 per cent. of the capital sum per annum, to which should be added 5 per cent. for interest. It will be found that each child on the average, taking summer with winter, costs a trifle over £1 per head per annum, or about 1.1d. per meal all told, and I have a rather strong opinion that a satisfactory breakfast cannot be provided for less.

My aim, so far, has been to give a simple statement of what has been done, and is being done, in the matter of free breakfasts in Birmingham, my object being to suggest that, simple as is the account, the business itself is not less simple. I do not expect the opinions I have formed to have the interest that I hope the facts possess; but it is impossible to have been in contact with the facts so long and intimately as I have been without forming opinions-it would, perhaps, be truer to say, without opinions forming themselves-and I will now, for a moment, pass to more general considerations.

I confess it came as somewhat of a shock to me to find, as I found from the recent correspondence in the Times, that, in the view of many, those who propose or promote such action as I have been describing, ought to be put

the ration. My reckoning is on the assumption of each child having received the full meal.