“Pray, gentlemen, silence for Sir Matthew Menhinick,” said Captain Warren, with twinkling eyes.  Sir Matthew was an ex-prime minister of Queensland, known to his intimates as Merry Matt, and to the whole continent as a jolly good fellow.  Being at Brisbane when the news of the wreck came, he instantly decided to join Captain Warren’s rescue party.  If he had a weakness for hearing his own voice, what could be expected in a man whose speeches filled volumes of legislative reports, but who was now in his retirement, deprived of these daily opportunities of addressing his fellow men?

“Gentlemen,” he said, beaming on the company; “officers and gentlemen, and able seamen of His Majesty’s Navy, I am a plain, blunt chap, I am, as you all know, and I can’t dress up what I’ve got to say in fine language like the Governor-General, but I can’t let this occasion pass without saying a word or two about the great, the wonderful, the stupendous achievement of our friend, Mr. Thesiger Smith. (Loud cheers.) This is a proud moment in my life.  I remember when I was a nipper in London, before any of you were born except our friend the doctor, I saw in a place called Cremorne Gardens a silly fellow of a Frenchman—­present company excepted—­try to fly with wings strapped to his arms.  Of course he came a cropper and broke his back.  I remember my dear old mother shaking her head and telling over to me that fine bit of poetry: 

    Cows and horses walk on four legs,
    Little children walk on two legs;
    Fishes swim in water clear,
    Birds fly high into the air;

and impressing on me that boys mustn’t be little beasts, nor try to be fishes, or birds, or anything else they wasn’t meant to be.  But now, gentlemen, in this wonderful twentieth century, them old doctrines are as dead as Queen Anne.  We’ve got submarines diving and roving along in the depths of the sea; we’ve got aeroplanes that fly up into the air; and we’ve got men, gentlemen, men of grit and backbone, men of courage and determination, that ‘fear no foe in shining armour,’ men like our friend Mr. Smith (roars of applause), who brave the perils of the deep and the chance of the empyrean, who take their lives in their hands and think nothing of it.  Some croakers will tell you the Old Country is going to the dogs.  Don’t you believe it. ("We won’t.”) I don’t believe she ever will go to the dogs while she’s got left a man of the old, honourable, and respected name of Smith. (Laughter and cheers.)

“Mr. Underhill just now referred in feeling terms to the personal results of Mr. Smith’s enterprise.  But for him, some of our number would by this time have crossed the bourne whence no traveller returns.  I need not speak of the joy and pride that must have filled a father’s and a brother’s breast—­” (Here the speaker blew his nose and wiped a mist from his spectacles.  Then he resumed.) “As I was saying, our friend has accomplished a wonderful feat, gentlemen.  He has