The boson was Mr. Kiley, the same old boson
of the _Savannah_, been with the Old Man when he was a middy in
sailing-ship days--couldn't lose each other. A lot of things about the
new Navy the boson and the gunner couldn't savvy, and when they got
talking things over together they left their blue-book etiquette in
their lockers. The admiral's yeoman tells 'em what the Old Man has
caught in his mail, and then he asks the boson, 'Did you try to use that
hose at all that day?'
"Try to? No, but I did. D' y' s'pose I was goin' to lose out on a little
thing like that 'cause of regulations? And 'specially after the officer
of the deck goes inside the bulkhead to give me a chance?'
"'He didn't go inside to give you any chance,' says the admiral's
yeoman. 'That was to write a message to the skipper.'
"' Sho-oo boy--bubbles! He was young enough, was Mr. Renner, but not so
young he didn't know enough not to bother the ship's boson when he's
gettin' results. And I snakes the hose off that scrap-heap, and before
he's back on the quarter I had it bustin' with navy-yard water-pressure,
and you betcher he sees it over the side, but he don't look too hard at
it. No, sir, he don't,' goes on the boson. 'And now take a word from
me--and it ain't out of any drill-book your division officer 'll read
to you. Let me have that endorsement gadjet and I'll lash it to the
fluke of one of our mudhooks next time we come to anchor, and after it's
laid a while on the bottom of Singapore harbor, or wherever it is we
next let go, under twenty, thirty, or forty fathom of water, whatever it
is, I'll let you see what it looks like.
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