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his chief
clerk and says, 'What do we do about this?'
"Now what the commandant meant and what he would have said, if
he'd put it in more words, was: 'I want the Savannah to have the use of
that condemned hose, but I suppose there are certain formalities to be
observed, and your business is to know what these formalities are. Here,
you attend to these formalities, but see that the Savannah gets the use
of the hose.' That's about how he would have put it aboard ship, but he
hadn't quite savvied this shore-going chief clerk at his elbow. Toward
him he didn't have that same sea-going feeling that he'd have toward
one of his old ship's crew.
"And the chief clerk wasn't the kind that lost sleep trying to make
trouble for anybody; but he was the combination of being twenty-five
years on one job and having a manager of a wife--an upstanding,
marine-sergeant sort of a woman, with the beam and bows of a
battleship, and an eye--oh, an eye!--and the chief clerk and his missus,
they'd just finished paying for their house over in the city, and they'd
had to scrimp and scrape for the Lord knows how many years to get it
paid for, and there was a marriageable daughter to provide for, and his

wife never let him forget that he mustn't risk their real estate or
jeopardize his job or the marrying prospects of the daughter, who was
just getting to where she was making a lot of desirable acquaintances.
There was a young staff officer, a passed assistant surgeon, within easy
range, and there was a young paymaster above the horizon, and no
telling but they might yet capture one of the line, and that was all the
old lady needed to be happy. But if papa was shifted to another city,
they'd have to sell the house at a sacrifice and start making friends, all
over again. They say that the chief clerk used to get his instructions
every morning like it was the uniform of the day. Above all things he
must never do anything that the department or any superior officer
could ever censure him for.
"He was a little man, the chief clerk, with an upturned moustache he
was always flattening fan-wise. 'Heels' they used to call him at the yard,
because he was so sensitive about his height that he wore regular
female opera-singer's heels on his shoes. Some said his wife made him
wear them. Even then he only came up to the top of her ear. Well,
Heels considers things now, and recollecting that this would come
under the jurisdiction of the captain of the yard, and that the captain of
the yard had his little spells, he says to the commandant, 'I think, sir,
we'll have to refer it.'
"'Refer it? To who?'
"'To the captain of the yard, sir.'
"'Captain of the--D'y' mean the Savannah can't use that bit of rotten old
hose without authority?'
"'Well, sir, you see it is like this. You see, sir, I have to do things the
way they are laid down for me. The Savannah could, perhaps, use that
section of hose, especially if you say so, sir, but--'
"'But what?'
"'But if, sir, the captain of the yard should learn it, as he might, sir, and
he should feel slighted, or if an inspector should happen along when it
was in use, and discover that the items in the scrap-heap did not tally
with his list, that there was a section of hose missing, that it was being
used without authority by the _Savannah_--'
"'Oh, you and your coulds and your shoulds!' snaps the commandant.
'Give me sea duty in place of any of these shore billets any time.
Aboard ship I have only to nod my head to my executive officer and a

thing's done; but here--O Lord! But go ahead, make out a request, or
requisition, or warrant, or whatever's necessary, and let's have it fixed
up.'
"And Heels, who used to be in the army when he was young, but didn't
like--or, rather, Mrs. Heels didn't like--to be told of it, he snaps his
heels together, starts his arm as if to salute, but stops in time, says, 'Yes,
sir,' goes off to his little desk, and typewrites Endorsement No. 1 to the
back of the captain of the _Savannah's_ letter, gets the commandant's
signature, and sends the messenger with it to the captain of the yard.
"And right here was when it really got under way. You see, if the
commandant had 'phoned over to the captain of the yard and said in an
off-hand, fine-day sort of way, 'I suppose it will be all right to let the
Savannah have that hose