on't know about seagoing can be found in about six
hundred pages of Knight's "Modern Seamanship," but that does not matter
much. Let them look after the casualties; there are capable young naval
officers to look after the seagoing end.

Most of these young surgeons have a taste for adventure. If they had
not, they would not be over here. The 352 drew one, born and raised in a
Southern State. Before coming over here he had viewed the Atlantic once
or twice from a distance, which did not quite content him. His ancestors
must have crossed that same Atlantic to get to America, and somewhere
within him was a high-pitched string that vibrated to every thrill of
that same ocean now.

He used to speak of these things in the smoking-room of the King's Hotel
here, which is where every destroyer officer comes at least once between
cruises to get a--cup of coffee. He would have liked to make a few sea
voyages when he was a little younger, but if a fellow is ever going to
amount to anything he has to settle down sometime and become a
respectable member of society--so his folks were always saying, and so
he took up medicine. He liked his profession. A doctor can do a heap of
good in a suffering world--especially if people will only let him. But
so many people want a young doctor to be experienced before they ever
will call him in! "Get experience," they say; and not a doggone one in a
dozen'll ever give a fellow any chance to get the experience. "What the
most of 'em want is for some one else to give us the experience." He did
as well as the next young doctor, but at times he would grow almost
melancholy sitting before the smoking-room fire telling of his waiting
for business in his home town.

He was not at all melancholy by nature. He could keep the ward-room mess
ringing with darky stories on a quiet night in port. His messmates
called him Doc; and when the ship was at sea they were all glad to see
him on the bridge studying things out. He had plenty of time for that.
In two cruises his only cases were one quartermaster, who got hove
across the bridge and broke his nose, and a gunner's mate who broke his
leg by being bounced out of his bunk one windy night. They were a
disgustingly healthy lot, these destroyer crews.

But he felt pleased just to be out to sea. These high hills of moving
water sure did give a little ship heaps of action sometimes. He would
watch them from the bridge. He would watch the officer of the watch too,