"Don't be down-hearted, Ned," said the first speaker. "I've sailed with old Farragut nearly eighteen years, and I know he'll pull us through."
"I haven't any doubt that he'll pull the fleet through all right," said Ned. "But even a victorious fleet generally has a few red spots on the decks, and not so many gunners when it comes out as when it went in. It's all right, of course. I'm not finding fault, and I'm not any more afraid than I ought to be. I expect to stand up and do my duty, as I know the rest of you will. But a man can't help being a human creature, with human feelings, if he is a sailor; and when he's killed he's just as much killed, and all his pretty plans spoiled, whether it's in a victory or in a defeat."
"That's all true enough, Ned," said the boatswain's mate; "but what we want to cultivate just now is the spirit of fight, not the spirit of philosophy. Save your philosophy till after the battle, and then you'll have plenty of good company, for then everybody will be philosophizing about it."
"They will, indeed," said the sailmaker, "and a good many of them will be telling how they could have managed it better that we did. The great trouble in this war is that so many of our best generals and admirals who ought to be in the field or on shipboard have jobs in barber shops that they don't like to give up, or can't be spared from country stores and newspaper offices."
"Oh, belay your sarcasm," said the boatswain's mate. "Let's have the story of the big fight between Dewey and Ammon, Sim."
Thereupon Nelson gave a minute and graphic account of that schoolboy contest.
"I don't see," said Ned, "why Bill Ammon never has mentioned that he was a schoolmate of Dewey's. I should think he would be proud of it."
"The reason is plain enough," said the sailmaker. "He was afraid that might lead up to the story of this fight. Probably he would be quite willing that it should remain untold."
"Well, whatever he was in school days," said Ned, "Bill's a pretty good fellow now; and I don't see that he has much to be ashamed of. It seems he put up a good stiff fight then, and I think he'll do his duty with the best of us now."
"Yes, that's so!" responded two or three.