"Were you a yeoman, Dallie?"

"Yes, a yeoman, bright Reggie boy; what else d' y' think I'd be--a
signal-girl? A good old ship, the _Savannah_, and were tied up to the
dock at the Navy Yard."

"Boston yard, was it, Dallie?"

"Never mind what yard it was, son. And I'll name no names, either, and
then by no accident will there be a general court-martial coming to me
some day. There were three of four other ships fitting out at the same
time, and after a while these other three ships got their stores aboard
and proceeded to sea, leaving a lot of old gear behind them on the dock.

"We were making ready to pipe water into our ship, when Mr. Kiley, our
boson, always a forehanded chap, thought it all a pity to have to use
our bran-new hose for that kind of work. You all know how hose gets
lying chafing around with people stepping on it, carts and wagons
running over it, coal-dust grinding into it, and so on. A pity, our
boson thought, to subject our nice new hose to that kind of abuse, when
in the condemned heap on the dock there was a length of hose that would
do the work, and he put it up to Mr. Renner, the officer of the deck at
the time.

"Now Mr. Renner was a new-made ensign, and we all of us here been long
enough in the service to know how it is about a middy that's just got
his commission. We all know how it is with ourselves when we first get
our C.P.O.--except you, Reggie, and you'll get yours some day. Am I
right? Sure I am. If there's one thing on earth we're going to do then,