school, and one much more severe and thorough than the Seacove High
School. They were learning something pretty nearly all the time, both in
the training school and aboard the _Colodia_. And there was much to
learn.

However, Whistler and Al took the work more seriously than their
younger mates. They were studying gunnery, and hoped to get into the gun
crew of the _Kennebunk_ for practice if they were fortunate enough to
cruise on that ship. Just at present Frenchy and Ikey Rosenmeyer were
more engaged in getting all the fun possible out of existence.

The thing that delighted the latter most was the way in which his father
treated him. Mr. Rosenmeyer had been a stern parent, and had opposed
Ikey's desire to enlist in the Navy. He always declared he needed the
boy to help in the store and to take out orders. Ikey had got so that he
fairly hated the store and its stock in trade. Pigs feet and sauerkraut
and dill pickles were the bane of his life.

Now that he was at home on leave, Mr. Rosenmeyer would not let Ikey help
at all in the store. If a customer came in, the fat little storekeeper
heaved himself up from his armchair and bade Ikey sit still.

"Nein! It iss not for you, Ikey. Don't bodder 'bout the store yet. We
haf changed de stock around, anyvay, undt you could not find it,
p'r'aps, vot de lady vants. Tell us again, Ikey, apout shootin' de
camouflage off de German raider-poat, de _Graf von Posen_. Mebby-so de
lady ain't heardt apout it yet. I didn't see it in de paper
meinselluf."

So Ikey, thus urged, spun the most wonderful yarns regarding his