“Well, the poor commandant didn’t know where the hose came from originally.  It might be from any one of three ships that had been lying to in the dock just before the Savannah’s request was received; a battleship, a cruiser, and a beef-boat they were.  But he supposed he had to do something about it, and so he looked up the latest orders.  The beef-boat was due back in the yard in a few days; but she rated only a lieutenant-commander.  The battleship had the rank:  a two-starred red flag from her main.  She was about as far away as she could be when last heard from; but no matter; rank had to be served.  The commandant begging leave to be informed passed it on to her.  Did she know anything about the section of hose in question, and if so, what?  And forwarded it, care of postmaster at Manila, P.I.  And when it came back—­after thirty or forty thousand miles of travel that was—­the battleship didn’t know anything about the section of hose referred to.  Nor did the cruiser, which was in the Mediterranean when caught, only she having lighter heels and hopping around more, it took eight months to get her.  There was still the beef-boat, which in the meantime had gone to sea and returned home again, and was now again to sea, on her way to the China station.  They went for her, and after a stern chase that lasted through six months and two typhoons and all kinds of monsoons and trades, they got her; whereat she begged leave to say that at the time of her collision with the collier Ariadne (for details of which see letter to Secretary of the Navy on such a day and month of such a year) many files of papers were lost.  And evidently whatever pertained to the section of hose in question was among the lost files; for certainly among the existing files there was no reference to any section of condemned hose-pipe.  It took three months more to get that back to the yard, and by that time the old commandant had been retired for age and a new commandant had fallen heir to it.

“The new head read all the endorsements, by now forty-eight, and pondered over them.  For perhaps three days he paced the yard with it, without being able to see where it concerned him; but he was very fond of puzzling things out, and thinking he saw a way out of this, he forwarded it to the old commander of the Savannah, who now had a battleship, the Texarkhoma, which was in winter quarters with the battle fleet at Guantanamo, Cuba, from where he figured on getting an answer in three weeks at least.  But before the mail reached Guantanamo, the Texarkhoma had been detached by cable and ordered to the West Coast by way of South-American ports.  The commandant at Guantanamo thought he might overtake the Texarkhoma at Rio Janeiro, and forwarded the packet to the American minister there.  But having meantime got another cable from the department to hurry and make a steaming test of the cruise, the Texarkhoma had stopped only long enough in Rio to coal ship, and so the packet