Biltmore Oswald | Page 2

her the 'Black Wing.'"
These few little remarks seemed to leave the officer flat. He regarded me with a pitiful expression. There was pain in his eyes.
"You mean to say," he whispered, "that you don't know what kind of a boat it was?"
"Unfortunately no, sir," I replied, feeling really sorry for the wounded man.
"Do you recall what was the nature of your activities aboard this mysterious craft?" he continued.
"Oh, indeed I do, sir," I replied. "I tended the jib-sheet."
"Ah," said he thoughtfully, "sort of specialized on the jib-sheet?"
"That's it, sir," said I, feeling things taking a turn for the better. "I specialized on the jib-sheet."
"What did you do to this jib-sheet?" he continued.
"I clewed it," said I promptly, dimly recalling the impassioned instructions an enthusiastic friend of mine had shunted at me throughout the course of one long, hot, horrible, confused afternoon of the past summer--my first, and, as I had hoped at the time, final sailing experience.
The officer seemed to be lost in reflection. He was probably weighing my last answer. Then with a heavy sigh he took my paper and wrote something mysterious upon it.
"I'm going to make an experiment of you," he said, holding the paper to me. "You are going to be a sort of a test case. You're the worst applicant I have ever had. If the Navy can make a sailor out of you it can make a sailor out of anybody"; he paused for a moment, then added emphatically, "without exception."
"Thank you, sir," I replied humbly.
"Report here Monday for physical examination," he continued, waving my thanks aside. "And now go away."
[Illustration: "'DO YOU ENLIST FOR FOREIGN SERVICE?' HE SNAPPED. 'SURE,' I REPLIED, 'IT WILL ALL BE FOREIGN TO ME'"]
I accordingly went, but as I did so I fancied I caught the reflection of a smile lurking guiltily under his mustache. It was the sort of a smile, I imagined at the time, that might flicker across the grim visage of a lion in the act of anticipating an approaching trip to a prosperous native village.
Feb. 25th. I never fully appreciated what a truly democratic nation the United States was until I beheld it naked, that is, until I beheld a number of her sons in that condition. Nakedness is the most democratic of all institutions. Knock-knees, warts and chilblains, bowlegs, boils and bay-windows are respecters of no caste or creed, but visit us all alike. These profound reflections came to me as I stood with a large gathering of my fellow creatures in the offices of the physical examiner.
"Never have I seen a more unpromising candidate in all my past experience," said the doctor moodily when I presented myself before him, and thereupon he proceeded to punch me in the ribs with a vigor that seemed to be more personal than professional. When thoroughly exhausted from this he gave up and led me to the eye charts, which I read with infinite ease through long practise in following the World Series in front of newspaper buildings.
"Eyes all right," he said in a disappointed voice. "It must be your feet."
These proved to be faultless, as were my ears and teeth.
"You baffle me," said the doctor at last, thoroughly discouraged. "Apparently you are sound all over, yet, looking at you, I fail to see how it is possible."
I wondered vaguely if he was paid by the rejection. Then for no particular reason he suddenly tired of me and left me with all my golden youth and glory standing unnoticed in a corner. From here I observed an applicant being put through his ear test. This game is played as follows: a hospital apprentice thrusts one finger into the victim's ear while the doctor hurries down to the end of the room and whispers tragically words that the applicant must repeat. It's a good game, but this fellow I was watching evidently didn't know the rules and he was taking no chances.
"Now repeat what I say," said the doctor.
"'Now repeat what I say,'" quoted the recruit.
"No, no, not now," cried the doctor. "Wait till I whisper."
"'No, no, not now. Wait till I whisper,'" answered the recruit, faithfully accurate.
"Wait till I whisper, you blockhead," shouted the doctor.
"'Wait till I whisper, you blockhead,'" shouted the recruit with equal heat.
"Oh, God!" cried the doctor despairingly.
"'Oh, God!'" repeated the recruit in a mournful voice.
This little drama of cross purposes might have continued indefinitely had not the hospital apprentice begun to punch the guy in the ribs, shouting as he did so:
"Wait a minute, can't you?"
At which the recruit, a great hulk of a fellow, delivered the hospital apprentice a resounding blow in the stomach and turned indignantly to the doctor.
"That man's interfering," he said in an injured voice. "Now that ain't fair, is it, doc?"
"You pass," said the doctor briefly, producing