"Why, look at the swell feed--and the champagne here to-day. And
look!" He slid off for inspection the band of the cigar he was
smoking. "I paid three for a dollar for that same cigar the other day
at a big hotel in Washin'ton. They must have money to throw overboard
to be givin' that kind away."
Carlin knew the brand. He also knew that only two, or it might be
three, officers of that ward-room mess could afford to smoke that make
of cigar regularly; but he did not tell Flavin that. "They get those
cigars for twelve cents apiece--buying 'em by the hundred--in Cuba, J.
J.," he suggested mildly.
"And the dealers stick us thirty-five cents for em up here! Anyway, a
fat time they have swelling 'round in uniforms given 'em by the
gover'ment for the ladies to admire 'em."
Two years of political reporting in his home city and two more as
Washington correspondent for the paper of most vital circulation in
that same home city had not made of Carlin a politician, and it is to
be doubted if ten times four years in a political atmosphere would have
so made him; because ancestrally implanted in Carlin's breast was an
inextinguishable desire to speak what he thought, and usually as soon
as he thought it.
He said now--sharply: "What do you know about naval officers or navy
life, J. J.?"
The Honorable J. J. Flavin had never, not even when he was only ward
leader and therefore much more disposed to humility than now, been able
to reconcile Carlin's unworshipful tongue with his own sense of what
was due a man of importance in the political world. And Judas priest,
he had a tongue of his own if it came to that! "Of course, you know
all about it!" he retorted.
"No, I don't," replied Carlin promptly and placidly. "But I probably
know more than do you or almost anybody else who has never had the
chance to live aboard ship and see some of it. This afternoon the
officers of this ship are spreading themselves according to service
traditions to give you and me and all aboard here a good time.
To-morrow they'll be to sea and on the job, a simple-living, busy
crowd--working hard, taking chances, and making no talk about it."
Flavin whoofed a funnel of doubting cigar smoke into the teeth of the
air-port breeze. "Taking chances! How? And where?"
"Everywhere. Day and night--battleships, destroyers, in submarines and
aeroplanes. Thirty men and officers killed in one turret explosion
only last month."
"Taking chances--huh! Foolish chances!"
"Anybody who isn't living to see how long he can live takes a foolish
chance once in a while. That turret crew were on the battle-range
trying to make big-gun records."
"And did they make 'em?"
"They did. And their seven-inch batteries made 'em, too. Single guns
and broadsides at ten thousand five hundred yards."
"I didn't hear about that," growled Flavin.
"No? That's a shame, J. J. The department ought to 've wired you
about it."
Flavin eyed Carlin sidewise. No use--he would never change. Would he
never get on to himself? Flavin wondered. Carlin ought to have been
one of the best-advertised men in his line in the country, as everybody
around Washington said, but a fellow liable to hop out any time and bat
somebody that could be of use to him over the eye, how could anybody go
boosting him?
"They must 'a' treated you pretty well, Carlin?" he hazarded slyly.
"They treated me well--yes," snapped Carlin. "And they're treating you
pretty decently now, aren't they?"
"I'd like to see 'em treat me, or any member o' Congress, any other
way!"
"A member of Congress--that's right. And as a member of Congress
you're drawing down how much, J. J.?"
"Seventy-five hundred a year--and allowances," replied Flavin, looking
around the wardroom and not caring particularly who might hear the
figures.
"And before you were sent to Washington you never made more than
fifteen dollars a week in your life," thought Carlin. Aloud he said,
in as gentle a tone as he could on short-order muster: "And did you
ever stop to think, J. J., that while you're being paid that
seventy-five hundred a year--and allowances--the captain of this ship,
with ten or eleven hundred lives and a twelve-million-dollar
war-machine to look out for, gets less than five thousand a year--and
that only after thirty-odd years of professional study and practice?
And that almost all of these other officers you see standing around
here will regularly have to go up on the bridge and take full charge of
this ship and all on her, and let 'em, some night or day, make a
mistake, lose their nerve, or close their eyes for an instant
and--bing! All off with the ten or eleven hundred lives, not to
mention the twelve-million-dollar plant! And these officers under the
captain have had all the way from seven or eight to thirty years of
continuous professional study and practice, and yet some of them are
getting less than one-third of the money you get."
To which the Honorable J. J. responded blandly: "Well, what of it?
Their pay and my pay is fixed by the same gover'ment. If they don't
pay more, it's because the people who regulate their pay and my pay
think they ain't worth any more."
"Fine!" said Carlin--"seeing that Congress regulates them both!"
"Huh!" Flavin hadn't foreseen that. "Here, you!" he roared to the
mess-boy with the tray of cigars; and the little brown boy, with no
inclining admiration for stout-waisted, loud-voiced men in splendid new
gray trousers and frock coats, but always well drilled, floated himself
and his tray respectfully, if not over-hurriedly, across the ward-room
deck to Flavin.
"If you worked for me I'd soon learn you to move faster," growled
Flavin. He began to paw through the tray. "Where's that cigar I had
before? This it?" He read the name on the band. "Yes, that's it.
Twelve cents apiece in Cuba, did y' say, Carlin? I wonder couldn't I
get somebody to get me some of 'em? Here, ain't you having one?"
"No, I've smoked enough."
"Enough?--and swell smokes like this kind being passed round!" He took
two.
Suddenly, smoking anew, Flavin cast a suspicious glance at the
newspaper man. "What you getting at, Carlin--trying to drive into me
all this talk about the navy? Is it because I'm a member of Congress?"
"I don't know that I've been trying to drive anything into you,"
retorted Carlin. "But you made a crack about the navy, and after
you've been in Washington awhile longer somebody will be sure to tell
you that my favorite monologue is the navy. They'll probably tell you,
too, that if I couldn't get anything more intelligent to listen I'd
hold up a row of trolley-poles and pump it into 'em. And so long as we
are at it--take the officers' case again. As a member of Congress, J.
J., you ought to know these things. When from out of his pay an
officer deducts the cost of his grub and uniforms, not to speak of
other items----"
"Huh!" Flavin was thinking of a new speech. Its theme was to be the
soft times of certain pampered government servants, this for the
undistinguished and unterrified voter of his district; but this item of
grub and clothes was disturbing. "The gover'ment don't furnish 'em
grub and clothes?"
"It doesn't. And the special full-dress coat of that officer standing
there, or any of those younger officers, happens to cost nearly
one-half of one month's pay--just the coat. And being naval officers,
they have to live up to a certain standard aboard ship, as do their
families, if they have any, ashore. And a lot of other items. Take
this reception this afternoon--they have to pay for it out of their own
pockets."
Flavin whoofed two, three funnels of smoke thoughtfully toward the
air-port. That speech would sure have to be given up, or vamped up in
some new way, or saved for prudent delivery before closed secret
organizations--that was sure. An impressive speech, too, he could have
made of it. Confound Carlin butting in with his inside information!
And Carlin not being a politician either, what could a fellow do with
him?
Carlin waited for the words of wisdom to flow. They flowed. "Y' know,
Carlin, there's nothing to be gained in my district by voting for any
naval bill."
"Is there anything to be lost?"
"Suppose I could swap a vote with somebody for a federal building or
something in my district for something in his district?"
"Go ahead and swap it!" barked Carlin. "And keep on swapping till your
district wakes up to you and swaps you for somebody else!"
Flavin shook his head in triumphant prophecy. "They won't--not in my
district, Carlin. It's too solid. A nomination is an election in my
district, and the machine says who'll be nominated. But I tell you
what, Carlin--a man like you in Washin'ton could help me out a lot
through your paper up home." He eyed Carlin narrowly to see how he
took that. Carlin said nothing. Flavin continued: "You weren't born
in the bushes yesterday, Carlin, for all you're no pol. You know
enough about the game to know there's nobody giving somethin' for
nothing in politics. And----"
Carlin raised a warning palm. "Pull up, pull up! You don't have to do
any trading in this thing. You want to remember, J. J., that I'm a
newspaper man even before I'm a navy man, and whatever you do you'll
get what's coming to you from me."
The Honorable Flavin, not without doubt in his eyes, stared out of the
air-port. Presently he said: "I'll take a look over the ship, I guess.
See you later."
The eyes of Carlin, searching the ward-room for such officers of the
ship as he had not yet greeted, encountered the quizzical and
questioning glance of "Sharkey," otherwise Lieutenant Trench, United
States Navy. "Who is your large and sonorous friend?" queried Trench.
Being a host he did not put it in words, but being human he could not
help looking it.
The spoken answer to the unspoken question would probably have
horrified the Honorable Flavin. "He's a man from up my way who made
himself useful to the machine, and so they sent him to Washington.
He's pretty raw, Sharkey, but I suppose he could be worse. At least we
know where he will always be found."
"And where, Carl, will he always be found?"
Carlin smiled with Trench. "Where the votes are. That's his idea of
supreme political genius--playing for the votes of the moment. I was
talking up the navy to him, with an increased navy-pay bill in mind for
this session. But I don't suppose that interests you, Sharkey."
"Thanks to the thrift and thoughtfulness of an acquisitive ancestry,"
smiled Trench, "I suppose I could worry along if there was never a
pay-day in the service. But most of the rest of the fellows would
surely be interested. There's Pay Totten now. He'd----"
"Where is Pay? I haven't seen him since I came aboard."
"Nor you won't for some time again, unless you carry a longer than
regulation glass, for Pay's by this time on the high seas and southward
bound. That's why I spoke of him. But come into my room."
From a pigeonhole in his desk in his room Trench pulled out several
typewritten pages. "Ever hear, Carl, of Pay's bale of blankets?"
"Nope."
"Ah-h--yours shall be the joy of hearing the tale from the lips of the
poet-author himself. You may elevate your high literary eyebrows at
the construction, but recalling that you, or some other competent
critic, told me once that construction was, after all,
subordinate--that is, physical, not psychological, construction--I
venture to tell this story in my own way. Hark, now!" He smoothed out
his sheets of paper and read:
"She was the war-ship _Missalanna_, which lay out in the stream
Of a port in Chinese waters which translated means Cold Cream.
A wireless comes from the admiral--he flew two stars on blue--
And the message read: 'At once cast free and join me in Chee Foo.
But bring along all packages, all bundles, and all mail
Our need is great, the fleet does wait, come forced draft, do not fail.'
"And says the _Missalanna's_ commander: 'Whatever shall I do?
'Tis a two days' Chinese holiday, don't they know that in Chee Foo?
And a thousand tons of coal we'll need, and merchandise in dock
Fills half the tin-clad warehouse, and immovable as rock
Are sampan men and coolies when they've knocked off for the day--
And now 'tis snow and hail and sleet and a two days' holiday!'
"But he wakes up good old Totten
Sleeping soundly in his bed,
And showing the admiral's wireless,
Mutters: 'This is what he said.'"