"You should have seen the rat-rat-tat. We built her in exactly nineteen months instead of two years and a half! Biggest battleship afloat--two hundred feet longer than the rat-tat-tat--launched her last rat-tat-tat--gone to rat-tat-tat-tat for her guns."
"What size guns?" I shouted above the hammers.
"Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-inch!" he said, smiling grimly.
"She has four rat-tat-tat-tat inch and twelve rattle-tattle inch besides rat-tat-tat-tat!" he answered, nodding.
"Really!" I roared, "if those guns are half as big as I think, the Germans--"
"The Germans--!" said he, and blew his nose.
"How long did you say she was?" I hastened to ask as the hammers died down a little.
"Well, over all she measured exactly rat-tat feet. She was so big that we had to pull down a corner of the building there, as you can see."
"The rat-tat-tat, and she's the rattle-tattle of her class."
"Are these hammers always quite so noisy, do you suppose?" I enquired, a little hopelessly.
"Oh, off and on!" he nodded, "Kick up a bit of a racket, don't they, but you get used to it in time, I could hear a pin drop. Look! since we've stood here they've got four more plates fixed--there goes the fifth. This way!"
Past the towering bows of future battleships he led me, over and under more steel cables, until he paused to point towards an empty slip near by.
"That's where we built the Lusitania!" said he. "We thought she was pretty big then--but now--!" he settled his hat a little further over one eye with a knock on the crown.
"Poor old Lusitania!" said I, "she'll never be forgotten."
"Not while ships sail!" he answered, squaring his square jaw, "no, she'll never be forgotten, nor the murderers who ended her!"
"And they've struck a medal in commemoration," said I.
"Medal!" said he, and blew his nose louder than before. "I fancy they'll wish they could swallow that damn medal, one day. Poor old Lusitania! You lose anyone aboard?"
"I had some American friends aboard, but they escaped, thank God--others weren't so fortunate."
"No," he answered, turning away, "but America got quite angry--wrote a note, remember? Over there's one of the latest submarines, Germany can't touch her for speed and size, and better than that, she's got rat-tat--"