Then the trouble began. A pill as big as a horse chestnut and made of bread crusts was forced down the victim's throat. The squirt gun hit him full in the face, a lotion was rubbed in his hair and then he was forced into the chair and shaved. A question was asked of him, and as he opened his mouth to reply a great paint brush of lather was thrust into it. Then came the order to pull out the plug from the chair and drop him over backwards into the tank. Well, that flight and that ducking! Here descriptive powers fail the Sun's correspondent. It can be described best in the words of Herman Melville, in his story of "White Jacket," relating to a cruise he made in 1843 around the horn in the United States frigate, United States, when he went into the water in another way.
"Time seemed to stand still and all the worlds poised on their poles as I fell. I was conscious at length of a swift flinging motion of my limbs. A thunder-boom sounded in my ears. My soul seemed flying from my mouth. Some current seemed hurrying me away. In a trance I yielded and sank down deeper with a glide. Purple and pathless was the deep calm now around me, flecked by summer lightnings in an azure afar.
"Then an agonizing revulsion came over me as I felt myself sinking. Next moment the force of my fall was expended and there I hung vibrating in the deep. What wild sounds then rang in my ear? One was a soft moaning, as of low waves on the beach, the other wild and heartlessly jubilant, as of the sea in the height of a tempest. The life and death poise soon passed, and then I felt myself slowly ascending and caught a dim glimmering of light. Quicker and quicker I mounted, till at last I bounded up like a buoy and my whole head was bathed in the blessed air."
That was just as it was and when the Sun man escaped from the tank he was greeted with more applause and cheering than he had ever received in his life.
The first initiation on the Louisiana was over. Then came a roll call of the officers. They had to produce certificates or pay tribute. The crew was assembled in long lines. One by one they went up the ladders. Drs. Flip and Flap received them. Elaborate examinations were made of their condition.
"My, my, sire!" Dr. Flip would shout. "'E's got valvular contraction of the eyelids!"
"What is the remedy?" Neptune would ask.
"My usual treatment, sire," would be the response.
Then would come a dose of dope, a rub of hair oil, a shave and a toss over into the tank to the hungry bears. Souse, souse, souse again would follow, and when the victim came to the surface each time he would send up a stream of water from his mouth that resembled the spouting of a whale. Those who were waiting for their duckings would shout with the members of Neptune's party. Officers crowded to the front of the bridge and the midshipman who was using the stadimeter to get the proper distance in formation had the hardest day of his life trying to keep his eye on the flagship.
"Pass 'em up quick!" shouted Neptune.