"No, Dear Mother," he wrote, "I don't. You have asked the question a good many times and I've ducked out of answering. But I'll answer now. I don't goto church. We had services in the navy and of course I attended. But in the merchant marine it's different. Some men read their Bibles and some don't. I don't read mine, first because I haven't got one and second because I was brought up in such a way that I know the Good Book inside out and I remember that nearly every statement in it contradicts some other statement . . . Shore leave is short, and the best thing that a sailor boy can do is to make it sweet—music and singing, and color, and pretty girls to dance with—sweet and not wicked . . .
"No. I am not glad that Mark is going into the church. I used to know Mark pretty well and he didn't seem to be cut out for that kind of a career. Is it his own irrevocable decision, or has somebody been telling him what he 'ought' to do and what he 'wants' to do until, well, he's decided to fire ahead, no matter what the consequence to him, so as not to give pain and disappointment to others?"
It was true that Mark, constantly worked upon since John's running away, and all his powers of individuality and self-determination and resistance worn down by Dear Mother's well known and un-
