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50 condolence. But in the back quarters of the town the Spanish sympathizers do not hesitate to declare that it serves the Yankees right, that they had no right to send a big warship here at this time, and that they hope every warship that may come from the United States will be served the same way."

"Is that all?" queried the mate of the Columbia, as Captain Ponsberry paused in his reading of the newspaper account.

"That's all the news there is of the explosion. I reckon everything was upset, and they couldn't get details," answered the captain.

"The Maine must have been a big boat," said Hobson.

"She was a big boat," answered Luke Striker. "I know something about her. She was what they call a battleship of the second class—although I allow as how she was fust class all over. She came out of the Brooklyn Navy Yard and she was over three hundred feet long, nearly sixty feet broad and drew about twenty-seven feet of water. Her hull was of steel, and she was put down as about sixty-seven hundred tons' displacement."

"Who is this Captain Sigsbee?" asked Larry.

"I don't know much about him, exceptin' that he