e deeds in the past, and shall to just as brave
in the future, mounts like a surging tide to our hearts:

"Oh, say, can you see?"

it is asking. And we can see--no need of the glass--ahead, astern,
abeam, aloft, some thousands of them streaming in the fresh west wind,
and within signal distance of their beautiful waving folds a multitude
of men and women in whom the sense of patriotism must have become
immeasurably deepened for being within call this day.

The vibration of brass and pipe, the music and the saluting, one ship
and the next, and never the welcome of one died out before the tumult of
the next began. It was like the ceaseless roar of the ever-rolling
ocean, with never an instant when the ear-drum did not vibrate to the
salute of cannon, the blood tingle to the call of the nation's hymn. One
felt faith in ships and crews after it; and later, when in the cabin of
the _Mayflower_ the admirals and captains gathered, to meet them and to
listen was to feel anew the assurance that this navy will be ready when
the hour comes to do whatever may be deemed right and well by the
people.

* * * * *

The admirals and the _attaches_ having departed and dinner become a
thing of the past, it was time to review the electric-light display.

We were almost abreast of the first in line, and she was like a ship
from fairyland. Along her run the bulbed lights extended, and thence to
her turrets, and, higher up, followed the outline of stacks and tops and
masts, with floating strings of them suspended here and there between.
Most striking of all, her name in gigantic, flaming letters faced
forward from her bridge. Now one ship decked in a multiplicity of jewels
on this clear calm night would have been a beautiful sight--but where
there were forty-odd of them----!

It was a sailor of the fleet, lurking in the shifting shadows of the
bridge, that he might enjoy his surreptitious cigarette and not suffer
disratement therefor, who reviewed the illuminations most illuminingly.
"Man, but they do blaze out, don't they? They make me think of the
post-cards we used to buy in foreign ports. You held them up before the
light and they came out shining like a Christmas-tree. But no ships of
cards these--and that's the wonderful thing, too. Seeing them to-day,
with their batteries in view, 'twas enough to put the fear o' God in a
man's heart, and now look at them--like a child's dream of heaven--that
i