"Seventy-five hundred a year—and allowances," replied Flavin, looking around the wardroom and not caring particularly who might hear the figures.
"And before you were sent to Washington you never made more than fifteen dollars a week in your life," thought Carlin. Aloud he said, in as gentle a tone as he could on short-order muster: "And did you ever stop to think, J. J., that while you're being paid that seventy-five hundred a year—and allowances—the captain of this ship, with ten or eleven hundred lives and a twelve-million-dollar war-machine to look out for, gets less than five thousand a year—and that only after thirty-odd years of professional study and practice? And that almost all of these other officers you see standing around here will regularly have to go up on the bridge and take full charge of this ship and all on her, and let 'em, some night or day, make a mistake, lose their nerve, or close their eyes for an instant and—bing! All off with the ten or eleven hundred lives, not to mention the twelve-million-dollar plant! And these officers under the captain have had all the way from seven or eight to thirty years of continuous professional study and practice, and yet some of them are getting less than one-third of the money you get."
To which the Honorable J. J. responded blandly: "Well, what of it? Their pay and my pay is fixed by the same gover'ment. If they don't pay more, it's because the people who regulate their pay and my pay think they ain't worth any more."
"Fine!" said Carlin—"seeing that Congress regulates them both!"
"Huh!" Flavin hadn't foreseen that. "Here, you!" he roared to the mess-boy with the tray of cigars; and the little brown boy, with no inclining admiration for stout-waisted, loud-voiced men in splendid new gray trousers and frock coats, but always well drilled, floated himself and his tray respectfully, if not over-hurriedly, across the ward-room deck to Flavin.
"If you worked for me I'd soon learn you to move faster," growled Flavin. He began to paw through the tray. "Where's that cigar I had before? This it?" He read the name on the band. "Yes, that's it. Twelve cents apiece in Cuba, did y' say, Carlin? I wonder couldn't I get somebody to get me some of 'em? Here, ain't you having one?"
"No, I've smoked enough."
"Enough?—and swell smokes like this kind being passed round!" He took two.
Suddenly, smoking anew, Flavin cast a suspicious glance at the newspaper man. "What you getting at, Carlin—trying to drive into me all this talk about the navy? Is it because I'm a member of Congress?"
"I don't know that I've been trying to drive anything into you," retorted Carlin. "But you made a crack about the navy, and after you've been in Washington awhile longer somebody will be sure to tell you that my favorite monologue is the navy. They'll probably tell you, too, that if I couldn't get anything more intelligent to listen I'd hold up a row of trolley-poles and pump it into 'em. And so long as we are at it—take the officers' case again. As a member of Congress, J. J., you ought to know these things. When from out of his pay an officer deducts the cost of his grub and uniforms, not to speak of other items——"