The interest of our four friends, and of Seven Knott even, was not
entirely centered in this patriotic duty of urging others into the
service. Their release from duty might end any day. Under ordinary
circumstances the chum would have been assigned before this to some
patrol vessel, or the like, until their own ship, the _Colodia_, made
port.

Mr. Minnette, however, was trying to place them on the _Kennebunk_, the
new superdreadnaught, for a short cruise. If he succeeded the friends
might be obliged to pack their kits and leave home again at almost any
hour. The _Kennebunk_ was fitting out in a port not fifty miles from
Seacove.

Meanwhile the chums were "having the time of their young sweet lives,"
Al Torrance observed more than once. The home folks had never before
considered these rather harum-scarum boys of so much importance as now
that they were in the Navy and becoming real "Old Salts." From Doctor
Morgan down to Ikey's youngest brother the relatives and friends of the
quartette treated them with much consideration.

To tell the truth it had not been patriotism that had carried Ikey
Rosenmeyer and his friends into the Navy. At that time the United States
was not in the war, and the four friends had thought little of the pros
and cons of the world struggle.

They thought they had had enough school, and there was no steady and
congenial work for them about Seacove. Entering the Navy had been a lark
in the offing.

As soon as they had joined, they found that they had entered another