Really, when reading the report of this admirably
conducted inquiry one isn't certain at times whether it is an Admirable
Inquiry or a felicitous _opera-bouffe_ of the Gilbertian type--with a
rather grim subject, to be sure.
Yes, rather grim--but the comic treatment never fails. My readers will
remember that in the number of _The English Review_ for May, 1912, I
quoted the old case of the _Arizona_, and went on from that to prophesy
the coming of a new seamanship (in a spirit of irony far removed from
fun) at the call of the sublime builders of unsinkable ships. I thought
that, as a small boy of my acquaintance says, I was "doing a sarcasm,"
and regarded it as a rather wild sort of sarcasm at that. Well, I am
blessed (excuse the vulgarism) if a witness has not turned up who seems
to have been inspired by the same thought, and evidently longs in his
heart for the advent of the new seamanship. He is an expert, of course,
and I rather believe he's the same gentleman who did not see his way to
fit water-tight doors to bunkers. With ludicrous earnestness he assured
the Commission of his intense belief that had only the _Titanic_ struck
end-on she would have come into port all right.
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