Page:Barbour--For the freedom from the seas.djvu/299

 avoid looking down at them when anyone was around. In honor of the advancement, Tip took him to dinner on shore and they made a very splendid occasion of it. Tip was still in the dark as to what was to happen to him, and spoke scathingly of the Admiralty because of its indifference to his future. Meanwhile, however, he seemed to be getting along very comfortably, spending a good deal of time at the Officers' Club or aboard ships in harbor, hobnobbing with his friends. The second day after the Gyandotte's return two events of interest occurred.

The first was the arrival in port of four new United States destroyers. They came gliding in soon after sun-up, the Stars-and-Stripes fluttering bravely, to a welcoming shriek of whistles from anchored craft. Big, able ships they were, long and low-cut abaft the forecastle, but with staunch, stiff bows. Triple torpedo tubes instead of twins: five-inch guns in the main battery instead of fours: "all the modern improvements," as Garey phrased it, and a reputed speed of thirty-four! Cheering and cheered, the newcomer, swept to anchorage, and officers decked and hurried shoreward to report to headquarters on the Hill. Those fine, new sea-terrors chirked everyone up immensely, and there 274