Page:Under Dewey at Manila.djvu/250

218, for the sight of such big guns, and so much powder and shell awed him. "Not much woodwork around here."

"Woodwork wouldn't do, if it came to a real battle," answered the Yankee, "for a good shot would fill every man around with splinters. When we clear the ship for action, you'll see 'most everything that's made of wood and movable heaved overboard. Even the men's ditty boxes will have to go, and then they'll be no richer than we are," he added; the ditty boxes being, let me add, the chests in which the tars keep their odds-and-ends of belongings.

Larry was tired, but scarcely hungry again when the call sounded for supper. Yet he and Striker joined the gunners' mess, to which they received a warm welcome, for Uncle Sam's Jack Tars are at all times a "hail-and-well-met" sort of men.

Even "mess gear," as it is termed, was a good deal of a revelation to Larry, so different was it from the eating hour on a merchantman. He learned that all the meals from that of the commodore down were cooked in the one big galley, presided over by a dozen or more cooks, but that separate messes were numerous, the commodore and the captain being entitled by rule to dine alone, and the senior