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at seven thousand yards." Emil poked his head thru one of the holes and seemed satisfied that it was there. "These buildings here, Emil, are the barracks. They are electric lighted, steam heated, and have hot and cold showers. They are always hot except when in use. Here is where we sleep. Those hammocks are seven feet from the - deck (Oscar could have said floor, but remembered that he must be salty at all times). They are not as high as you would, think, considering the time it takes you to hit the deck when you fall out. To get into a hammock you must jump and grab these jack stays, chin yourself nine times, skin the cat backwards and let go and finish with a somersault into the hammock. It's very hard at first, Emil, to stay there after you get in. If you roll to one side or the other, out you go and up comes the deck to slap you in the face. You must constantly straddle the equator of one to stay there."
"We go to bed at nine o'clock, and it takes about twenty minutes for five a. in. to come around. When we turn to in the morning every one takes a cold shower from the hot water pipes and dresses by five fifteen. Then the place is swabbed down. A swab is a navy mop, and no previous experience is necessary to run one. After swabbing, the deck is squeegeed. That's a 'squeegee' over there, - looks like a window rubber, don't it? It works the same way as a swab.
"This is my sea bag. We have to keep all our clothes and worldly possessions in it. We get used to these clothes and now I like them. 1 remember when we drew our first outfit. Some of the men began to complain. 'Now if dese clothes is too big dey will shrink, and if too little dey will stretch, so quit dis chewin' de fat,' is what Old Cap Hardy told us: He was born in the navy, I guess.
"We use a kiji brush to scrub our clothes and ofttimes our sea bags and hammocks get it. It is great to feel that everything around you is clean. We know it's clean because we clean it."
They went over to the large mess hall. Here Emil saw two large rooms with long tables and was surprised how everything could be kept so clean. "This place is thoroughly scrubbed and cleaned after every meal," explained Oscar. "It is no trouble to get an appetite around here. I could eat my hat if I had a little gravy on it, and I defy the bummest cook here to cook anything I cannot eat. Those men in white are mess cooks. They are detailed every week over here to make everything as miserable as possible while we eat."
Oscar took Emil to the drill hall next.
"This is where we drill in the winter. During the summer months we drill on the field out there. The hall here isn't big enough to do squads cast though. Back here are the big guns. This is a five-inch gun. That shell is a twelve inch. It weighs about as much as five or six sober men, and when shot from the gun travels over a mile in two seconds. There is a 'sea going' ' torpedo and a regular submarine mine. This is where the gunners mates school study. There are several other schools here, the coxswain school and quartermasters' school, hospital corps school and yeoman school. Yeomen are also used to bother sailors and to do the steno work. They are usually blacksmiths in civil life."
Emil was startled by hearing a loud purring sound seemingly from above. He rushed out and looked up, seeing two shining aeroplanes doing all kinds of stunts in the air. "You see," explained Oscar, "we have an aviation school here and you can see some of those in the air nearly any time during the summer."
"See that fleet of boats out there at anchor? Those are our training ships. The seamen are sent out there to get real experi-
