Then the procession started for the quarterdeck, and leaning far over the rails on the starboard side with the stiff trade wind blowing the sound from the megaphoned throats of the singers, happy New Year's greetings were sung to the Georgia, 400 yards back and to starboard. That ship heard it easily.
Then came a procession through the Louisiana. The members of the crew were slung in their hammocks, but numerous noises of catcalls and horns and shouts told that no one was asleep. At every section of every division on every deck the sailors were greeted with song. They sat up and cheered. It was fine to have a party of officers come around and wish you a happy New Year. Every mess of the ship received a call. When the warrant officers' mess was reached there was a brilliant display of pajamas and—well, in print one musn't go into particulars too fully. Regulations must be obeyed strictly even when you're having a good time. All the regulations were obeyed—several times, and then some—in that big roundup.
Didn't the bos'n sing:
Bad luck to the day
I wandered away.
and then go into the forty-seven verses about life on the "Old Colorado"? Didn't the electrical gunner join with the chief engineer in giving down the twenty-seven bells song? Didn't the carpenter dance a highland fling? Didn't the scholarly warrant machinist from the Boston Tech. twang a banjo and set the pace for the "Old New York" and the "Dear Old Broadway" songs? And then didn't someone remark that "dear old Kim" hadn't been seen in all the parading that night? A rush was made for Kim's room but it was barricaded.
"Come out, Kim!" was the order.
"Not on your life," was the response.
And then, for revenge, didn't the crowd sing a song about Kim? Every man who knows anything about the United States Navy knows Kim, the genial paymaster's clerk, who sits in the junior officer's mess to keep the youngsters in proper submission, and who has trained a generation of officers in things naval; Kim, who has sailed the high seas in the United States Navy for a quarter of a century and knows so much about the ships and officers that he wouldn't dare to tell it all and ought to be made an Admiral for his knowledge and his discretion; Kim, who has to salute many a man with a star on his sleeve and some of them with two stars, the minute he sees them, and then can call them Bill and Jim and Tom in private; Kim, the best beloved, all around good fellow on the ship; yes, everybody knows Kim. It isn't necessary to print the full name of this obliging, hard working autocrat of the paymaster's office. This is the song that greeted him:
Everybody works but dear old Kim,
He sits 'round all day,