The officer seemed to be lost in reflection. He was probably weighing
my last answer. Then with a heavy sigh he took my paper and wrote
something mysterious upon it.

"I'm going to make an experiment of you," he said, holding the paper
to me. "You are going to be a sort of a test case. You're the worst
applicant I have ever had. If the Navy can make a sailor out of you it
can make a sailor out of anybody"; he paused for a moment, then added
emphatically, "without exception."

"Thank you, sir," I replied humbly.

"Report here Monday for physical examination," he continued, waving my
thanks aside. "And now go away."

[Illustration: "'DO YOU ENLIST FOR FOREIGN SERVICE?' HE SNAPPED.
'SURE,' I REPLIED, 'IT WILL ALL BE FOREIGN TO ME'"]

I accordingly went, but as I did so I fancied I caught the reflection
of a smile lurking guiltily under his mustache. It was the sort of a
smile, I imagined at the time, that might flicker across the grim
visage of a lion in the act of anticipating an approaching trip to a
prosperous native village.


_Feb. 25th._ I never fully appreciated what a truly democratic nation
the United States was until I beheld it naked, that is, until I beheld
a number of her sons in that condition. Nakedness is the most
democratic of all institutions. Knock-knees, warts and chilblains,
bowlegs, boils and bay-windows are respecters of no caste or creed,