'
"'No, no, Kiley, don't you do it,' says the gunner. 'Don't you do it.
Some crazy Parsee diver might spot it and go down and bring it up; and
besides, you oughtn't let it get wet--it'd spoil all that nice
typewriting. Give it up to me and I'll take it up on the after-bridge,
and if it's too stiff for wadding, I'll tie it across the muzzle of the
first six-pounder we salute the port with, and let you see how it looks
then.'
"'What you two pirates need,' says the admiral's yeoman, 'is to learn a
little respect for the shore-going departments where your orders are
made out,' and goes back to his office and takes that hose-pipe
communication and reads through the sixty-seven endorsements again, and
then he carefully typewrites on a new leaf:
"'_Endorsement No_. 68
U.S.S. _Texarkhoma_,
Hong-kong, China,
Date So and so.
"'Respectfully returned, with the information that the need of the
section of hose-pipe no longer exists, for the reason that we
filled the _Savannah's_ tanks with it seven years ago.
"'Very respectfully,
"'Your obedient servant,'
"and signs his own name and rating, Percy Algernon Willoughby--call him
that--Chief Yeoman, U.S. Navy, and glues that on behind the other
sixty-seven endorsements and gloats over it, and for a few minutes feels
like a bureau chief himself. Then for another minute or two he thought
of mailing it to them.
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