“Do you believe, Admiral,” I asked, “that a navy can be run on water—that is to say, of course, the ships have to run on water ... but I mean the men. Do you think——” And then I got tangled up and came to a full stop, for the expression on the old sea dog’s face was a mixture of puzzlement and pugnacity.
“What do you mean?” he roared. “Not to give the men water in place of grog?”
His attitude was positively menacing. I began to grow nervous.
“Why—er—that is the idea, Admiral. Do you believe it is possible to conduct a navy efficiently on prohibition principles?”
“Prohibition? Never heard the word before. And now that I have heard it I don’t like the sound of it. What are you jibbing and windjamming in this way for? Come right out and run up your true colors. Do you mean to tell me that anybody is seriously proposing to do away with grog in the American Navy? I’d hang the dastardly rascal from the yard-arm. Walking the plank would be too good for him.”
“Well, Admiral, you might as well know the whole truth. Grog has not only been abolished in the Navy (and that took place some years ago), grog has been abolished throughout the country. Liquor can neither be manufactured nor sold anywhere in the United States.”
Perhaps I should have broken the startling news to the old fellow more gently. But instead of the expected outburst of anger he sat stunned, still as a statue, or a speak-easy in Harlem.
For two minutes or more he kept silent. Then he spoke. “Say it again,” he muttered in a weak tone, “and say it slow.”
I complied.
“No grog for them as fights the battles, no whiskey, no brandy, no shandy-gaff, no Jamaikey rum, nothin’ but milk and water. What kind o’ putty-faced swabs—But I needn’t ask. I see it now. You’ve been conquered by them Turks and water-drinking Mohammedans. But who’d have thought it?” And he shook his grizzled head disconsolately. “No whiskey, no brandy, no shandy-gaff, no Jamaikey rum,” he went on muttering to himself as in a daze, over and over again, until I thought it might be advisable to recall him to himself.