ally. My trousers were built for Charlie Chaplin. I
feel like a masquerade.

[Illustration: "HOSPITAL APPRENTICE TREATED ME TO A SHOT OF PELHAM
'HOP'"]

[Illustration: "I FEEL LIKE A MASQUERADE"]

A gang of recruits shouted "twenty-one days" at me as I was being led
to Mess Hall No. 1. The poor simps had just come in the day before and
had not even washed their leggings yet. I shall shout at other
recruits to-morrow, though, the same thing that they shouted at me
to-day.

Our P.O. is a very terrifying character. He is a stern but just man, I
take it.

He can tie knots and box the compass and say "pipe down" and
everything. Gee, it must be nice to be a real sailor!

[Illustration: "THIS, I THOUGHT, WAS ADDING INSULT TO INJURY"]

_March 2d._ Fell out of my hammock last night and momentarily
interrupted the snoring contest holding sway. I was told to "pipe
down" in Irish, Yiddish, Third Avenue and Bronx. This, I thought, was
adding insult to injury, but could not make any one take the same view
of it. I hope the thing does not become a habit with me. I form habits
so readily. In connection with snoring I have written the following
song which I am going to send home to Polly. I wrote it in the
Y.M.C.A. Hut this afternoon while crouching between the feet of two
embattled checker players. I'm going to call it "The Rhyme of the
Snoring Sailor." It goes like this:

I

The mother thinks of her sailor son
As clutched in the arms of war,
But mother should listen, as I have done,
To this same little, innocent sailor son
Sprawl in his hammock and snore.

Oh, the sailor man is a rugged man,
The master of wind and wave,
And poets sing till the tea-rooms ring
Of his picturesque, deep sea grave,
And they likewise write of the "Storm at Night"
When the numerous north winds roar,
But more profound is the dismal sound
Of a sea-going sailor's snore.

II

Oh, mothers knit for their sailor sons
Socks for their nautical toes,
But mothers should list to the frightful noise
Made by their innocent sailor boys
By the wind they blow through their nose.

Oh, life at sea is wild and free
And greatly to be admired,
But I would sleep both sound and deep
At night when I'm feeling tired.

So here we go with a yo! ho! ho!
While the waves and the tempests soar,
An artist can paint a shrew as a saint,
But not camouflage on a snore.