e following your example."

"Quite a few of them are, sir."

"May I ask what you are seeking to accomplish?"

Dan glanced up inquiringly.

"I mean as to the future. What do you hope to do with yourself?" asked
the captain.

"Naturally, sir, I hope to gain promotion when I have earned it," was
Dan's answer.

"Ah, yes; to be sure. You have ambitions to become petty officers.
Well, your prospects are good, young men, if you keep on in that way
you have been going. You will come below for the books as I suggested,
will you not?"

"Yes, sir; thank you, sir."

"As I have said before, whenever you wish advice or assistance, come to
me, through your immediate superiors, and you will find me ever ready
to aid you."

"Thank you, sir," acknowledged the boys, in chorus. The captain
saluted in answer to theirs; then, turning on his heel, left the turret.

"That's what I call a right smart gentleman," announced Sam Hickey,
with an emphatic nod of the head.

"The captain is a magnificent man. We are lucky, old fellow, in being
under such a commander. I'd face powder and bullets any day for him."

"Say, Dan."

"Yes."

"He invited us to call on him, didn't he?"

"Well, yes; something like that, though not in a social sense. That
would be impossible."

Sam pondered.

"Do you know I'd give a month's pay if the rest of the bunch could see
me sitting in one of those mahogany chairs in the Old Man's quarters,
with my feet on his dining room table."

"Sam Hickey, I am ashamed of you. You ought to be ashamed of yourself,
to say a thing like that! Suppose the commanding officer had overheard
those words, instead of what he did overhear. What would you have done
then?"

"What would I have done? Why, I'd have slipped out through the gun
port, and left you to square things with him," answered the resourceful
Sam.

"You're hopeless," muttered Dan. "And, another thing, before you talk
of giving a month's pay remember that you have nearly a month's pay
charged against you for the loss of the tompion."

"That's so. I'm going to ask the captain about that. Maybe, when he
hears my side of the case, he will remit the fine. It's a shame to
make me pay it."

"Don't be a baby. Be a man and take your medicine like a man," advised
Dan, as he pulled on his jacket and prepared to leave the turret.

That evening they reported at the captain's quarters, as they had been
directed. While, in this instance, the lads