Fail to appear and ever rue the day My kingly law you dared to disobey.
Attest: OCTOPUS, Executus Officerius. January 4, 1908.
There is always a good deal of serious conversation, especially as to naval matters. There was the everlasting discussion of the pay bill and its chances before Congress. Always there was talk of naval history, incidents of old cruises. Naval Academy reminiscences, and not a day passed without earnest shop talk, how to improve this or that thing, how to add to the fighting efficiency of the ship. All this talk is from a lofty and patriotic standpoint and the one thing that impresses the outsider is the intense loyalty to the flag.
By way of other diversion there is always harmless card playing of one kind or another after dinner and the day's work is over. Chess and checkers are played also. It is a mistake to think that there is gambling on warships as a rule. Bridge has its devotees. Many people believe that naval officers are inveterate poker players. They may have been in the past, but if the cruise of the Louisiana is a criterion it has disappeared. The Sun correspondent has been in a position to know the facts and he asserts with the utmost positiveness that there has not been a single game of poker played by the officers of this ship on the present cruise. Heaven knows naval officers, just like other folks, have enough of human frailties to answer for, but they rise superior to many folks in that they have not the sin of poker playing to explain away, at least not in the modern conditions of naval life at sea. This form of gambling may exist on some ships but if what the officers of the Louisiana say is true it is rarely nowadays that it is practised in the navy.
Social amenities are observed most carefully by these men. Every mess has its social secretary, who looks after social correspondence. The mess has its social card. When a ship reaches port where there are other ships of the navy or where there are foreign warships the niceties of calling and entertaining etiquette are observed. A naval officer would no more neglect observing all social proprieties than he would appear without his proper uniform on the quarter deck.
Many officers spend a large part of their time in reading. They are an unusually well-informed set of men. Their wide travel conduces to this. Some of them are musically inclined and many an evening is spent in the steerage where there is a piano. It takes only a few minutes to get up an improvised orchestra of a couple of violins, a guitar, a mandolin and a horn or two. Songs soon begin to be heard and the music fest often develops into a story telling contest and all hands turn in late after a jovial meeting.