"Huzza!" shouted the Commodore and the Purser, as they fell into each other's embrace and wept conservative tears upon each other's blue shirt-collars, while the sternly patriotic Cook pushed the seductive bowl afar and whistled the "Star-Spangled Banner," as a counter-irritant. But when he asked for his bill, and found that it was but thirty-five cents for each individual, he retired to the hotel parlor where there was an asthmatic cottage-organ and penitently played "Rule, Britannia," keeping, however, a cautious foot upon the soft pedal lest his temporary lapse from national love should be discovered.
On returning to the boats it was discovered that the small boy who had been engaged as watchman had accumulated half a hundred deputies. As none of these expected any money, the fickle Vice fluctuated back to his first love among the nations, and was rebuked by the Commodore for judging all things by a financial standard.
The breeze had apparently been to dinner too, for it was amazingly reinvigorated and marked about forty flaws to the hour. An order to carry only "dandy" sails was protested against by the entire command, and the Commodore, hoping that the coffin trade was not depressed in the shipping port at the river's mouth, reluctantly gave way to the wishes of his subordinates. The result was that extraordinary time was made, and twenty-five miles were passed almost before the voyagers realized that the afternoon was waning.
As they approached the close of their voyage, the considerable town where their voyage was to end, it occurred to the squadron that its personal and individual appearance was the reverse of prepossessing. A halt was accordingly made, and for an hour assiduous attention was paid to baths, soap, shaving utensils, and the carefully preserved remnants of what had once been laundried articles of wear. The one pocket mirror had long since disappeared, so that certain delicate operations of the toilette were performed with some uncertainty. The Commodore had reached the final touches, and was tenderly arranging the thin locks which still cluster about his posterior cranial processes. To this task he devoted for a time all the powers of his gigantic intellect, but in the absence of the accustomed mirror, the result was unsatisfactory. Dropping his hand at last, the Commodore sighed, and looked around for assistance. The Vice, resplendent in a white shirt and neck-tie, was unoccupied. To him the Commodore, tendering the fragmentary comb:
"I say, Vice, part my hair, will you, please."
The Vice marveled, but mechanically took the comb, while the Commodorial dome was bowed conveniently before him. Long he paused, so long that the Commodore, losing patience, called out, "Why don't you go ahead?"
"My dear boy," said the Vice, "So I would, but there's nothing in the world to part."
The venerable mariner slowly straightened himself, looked blankly for a moment into the face of his lieutenant, and passed his hand reflectively over the smooth top of his head.
"I beg your pardon, boys," he said at last. "I had forgotten. This cruise has made me so much younger that I thought I wasn't bald yet. It's high time for me to be back at the office—'There'll be no parting there.'"
Of the remainder of the run, some five or six miles, no member of the squadron is mentally fitted to give a correct account. Every one wanted to be first in port, and the Vice, in anticipation of being the fortunate man, had secretly extemporized a new star spangled banner to carry at the peak of his mainsail. But both Red Lakers shot ahead of the Chrysalids, and the Vice at last ignominiously took in his national ensign because it wasted a certain amount of wind.[11] Finding there was but one boat against him, the Cook assumed that he had himself already won the race, so he began to compose a sarcastic address to be delivered to his associates as one by one they rejoined him at whatever landing-place he might select. While he composed he heard a whiz, he saw a shadow, and the wind died (apparently) so suddenly that he barely had time to adjust the trim of his boat to avoid capsizing. Looking about him he saw the great sails of the flagship passing him to windward, and he heard the voice of the Commodore, in tones which no combination of type can express, shouting,