"They don't worry you the way they do us," groaned the young cadet engineer, "over all the different sorts of machinery for the handling of big guns. It's thorough, all right; there isn't a chap in our class who couldn't figure out and explain every process of manufacture and mounting, up to the actual work of handling the gun in an engagement."
"I don't see that you've got any kick coming," Eric retorted, "you always said you liked machinery. Now I haven't much use for mathematics, though I don't hate it quite as much as I did, and yet we get enough coast and geodetic surveying to prepare us for exploring a new world. I suppose they figure that if the United States ever annexes Mars, a Coast Guard crew will be put in charge."
"Likely enough," said the other, "but isn't that what you like about it?"
"Sure, it's great," agreed Eric. "I'm just crazy over the Academy. I wouldn't be anywhere else in the world. I don't believe there's a college within a mile of it for real training. There's all the pep to it that a Naval School has got to have, and although they hold us down so hard, after all, we get a lot of fun out of it. And take them 'by and large,' as the shellbacks say, don't you think the Coast Guard crowd is just about the finest ever?"
"You bet," Homer answered with emphasis. "It was seeing how they handled things that first headed me for the service. Did I ever tell you what made me want to join?"
"No," Eric replied, "I don't think you ever did."
"It was in New York," his friend began. "I was there with Father. We were doing the sights of the town and he took me down with him to the water-front. He took the occasion to call on the Senior Captain of the Coast Guard stationed there. They were old cronies.
"While they were talking, there came a 'phone from the Navy Yard. On account of the Great European War the Coast Guard had undertaken some special neutrality duty in New York harbor. The Navy had lent a tug for the purpose. The 'phone message was to say that while the Coast Guard was perfectly welcome to the tug, on which the patrol was being done, the tug captain was compulsorily absent in sick bay.
"The lieutenant, who had charge of the patrol,—he didn't look much older than I do—answered the 'phone. Evidently the admiral in command of the Brooklyn Navy Yard must have been talking to him, personally, because I heard his answer,
"'Certainly, Admiral. I shall be able to take her out without the master on board. As far as that goes, sir,' he added with an earnest laugh in his voice, 'I think I could take out anything you've got, from a first-class battleship down!'"