“Christmas is Christmas,” said his nurse.  “When I was young, at such times there wouldn’t be a ship in the harbour without its talking-bush.”

“What is a talking-bush?” the boy asked.

“And you pretend to be a sailor!  Well, well—­not to know what happens on Christmas night when the clocks strike twelve!”

The boy’s eyes grew round.  “Do—­the—­ships—­talk?”

“Why, of course they do!  For my part, I wonder what Billy teaches you.”

Late that evening, when the household supposed him to be in bed, the boy crept down through the moonlit garden to the dinghy which Billy had left on its frape under the cliff.  But for their riding-lights, the vessels at the buoy lay asleep.  The crews of the foreigners had turned in; the Nubian, of Runcorn, had no soul on board but a night-watchman, now soundly dozing in the forecastle; and the Touch-me-not was deserted.  The Touch-me-not belonged to the port, and her skipper, Captain Tangye, looked after her in harbour when he had paid off all hands.  Usually he slept on board; but to-night, after trimming his lamp, he had rowed ashore to spend Christmas with his family—­for which, since he owned a majority of the shares, no one was likely to blame him.  He had even left the accommodation-ladder hanging over her side, to be handy for boarding her in the morning.

All this the boy had noted; and accordingly, having pushed across in the dinghy, he climbed the Touch-me-not’s ladder and dropped upon deck with a bundle of rugs and his father’s greatcoat under his arm.

He looked about him and listened.  There was no sound at all but the lap of tide between the ships, and the voice of a preacher travelling over the water from a shed far down the harbour, where the Salvation Army was holding a midnight service.  Captain Tangye had snugged down his ship for the night:  ropes were coiled, deckhouses padlocked, the spokes of the wheel covered against dew and frost.  The boy found the slack of a stout hawser coiled beneath the taffrail—­a circular fort into which he crept with his rugs, and nestled down warmly; and then for half an hour lay listening.  But only the preacher’s voice broke the silence of the harbour.  On—­on it went, rising and falling. . . .

Away in the little town the church clock chimed the quarter.  “It must have missed striking the hour,” thought the boy, and he peered over the edge of his shelter.  The preacher’s voice had ceased; but another was speaking, and close beside him.

“You’d be surprised,” it said, “how simple one’s pleasures grow with age.  This is the twelfth Christmas I’ve spent at home, and I assure you I quite look forward to it:  that’s a confession, eh?—­from one who has sailed under Nelson and smelt powder in his time.”  The boy knew that he must be listening to the Touch-me-not, whose keelson came from an old line-of-battle ship.  “To be sure,” the voice went on graciously, “a great deal depends on one’s company.”