“Oh,” I replied easily, “I occasionally yachted.”

“On what kind of a boat?” he urged.

“Now for the life of me, sir, I can’t quite recall,” I replied.  “It was a splendid boat though, a perfect beauty, handsomely fitted up and all—­I think they called 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.