'd mind the ringin' of the cash-register in a barroom up
here. Sometimes you'd see the skipper showin' signs of impatience,
rumplin' his hair and rubbin' his chin and maybe cussin' a little; but
he always ended by hurryin' a patrol party ashore, and we'd beat up the
grog-shops 'n' the dance-halls and the park benches and hustle everybody
aboard, and the chief engineer he'd rouse out a couple of extra stokers,
and up steam and away we'd go.

Foolish things--revolutions? Maybe. But people who say no good can come
out o' revolutions, they don't know. I got rank an' fortune out of a
revolution one time. Yes, sir, me, Killorin, bosun's mate, second class,
U.S.N. and on my first Caribbean cruise it was, and--but I'll get to
the rest of it. When I was drafted to the _Hiawatha_ on the Caribbean
station I had what you might call only a virgin notion of revolutions.
My first enlistment was 'most run out, and I was looking to be put
aboard some home-bound ship, but I was still on the _Hiawatha_ when she
was told to jog along over to Tangarine, a bustling young republic which
was beginnin' to make a name for itself in the revolutionary way.

Whatever they were doin' we were to stop it. That was the Monroe
Doctrine, the officers said. And so we put over there, but we didn't
stop it. It was all over, with the Reds in an' printin' new money and
postage-stamps and makin' a bluff to collect customs fine as could be
when we got there.

There was nothin' to keep us there, but it was a fruitful-lookin'
country and the skipper he thought he might 's well get a little fresh
grub for his mess, and he sends me ashore to do the buyin'. And I goes.
And the first grocery store I come to I says to the man behind the
counter: "How much for a ham?" And he says, quick and brisk, "Four
thousand dollars," and I was most stunned, but I manages to slap a
five-dollar gold piece down on the counter and I says, quick and brisk
too: "In God's name gimme a bite out of it!" An' I had to hire two
coolies to wheel the change back to the ship.

Well, the money values of that Tangarine place had me mesmerized, and
when my time ran out a few weeks later I settles up with the paymaster
and stands by to go over the side with my bag. The skipper he says:
"Killorin, I'll be over here by'n'by and take you off. And you'll be
glad to come, I'll wager." And I says, "Thank you, sir, but this is the
dolsee far nanity country for me. With the number o' gold pieces I got
i