Here,
you attend to these formalities, but see that the _Savannah_ gets the
use of the hose.' That's about how he would have put it aboard ship, but
he hadn't quite savvied this shore-going chief clerk at his elbow.
Toward him he didn't have that same sea-going feeling that he'd have
toward one of his old ship's crew.
"And the chief clerk wasn't the kind that lost sleep trying to make
trouble for anybody; but he was the combination of being twenty-five
years on one job and having a manager of a wife--an upstanding,
marine-sergeant sort of a woman, with the beam and bows of a battleship,
and an eye--oh, an eye!--and the chief clerk and his missus, they'd just
finished paying for their house over in the city, and they'd had to
scrimp and scrape for the Lord knows how many years to get it paid for,
and there was a marriageable daughter to provide for, and his wife never
let him forget that he mustn't risk their real estate or jeopardize his
job or the marrying prospects of the daughter, who was just getting to
where she was making a lot of desirable acquaintances. There was a young
staff officer, a passed assistant surgeon, within easy range, and there
was a young paymaster above the horizon, and no telling but they might
yet capture one of the line, and that was all the old lady needed to be
happy. But if papa was shifted to another city, they'd have to sell the
house at a sacrifice and start making friends, all over again.
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