This means that as soon as an officers' mess is organized its treasurer goes to certain dealers and contracts for a large quantity of food supplies on condition that payments shall be made at certain intervals. There are many large wholesale houses that are glad to get that kind of trade because they know that ultimately they will receive every cent due them. The members of the mess are assessed so much a month, according to experience in such matters, and the result is that the food of a naval officer costs him in the prepared state about $1 a day. A treasurer is elected once every month. He must serve, and he sits at the foot of the table, while in the wardroom mess the executive officer sits at the head. The treasurer may be elected to serve a second month, but he cannot be made to serve more than two months consecutively.
The organization of the other messes is similar to that of the wardroom mess. The wine mess is composed of such officers as wish to join it. They get their supplies from a dealer who backs them, and to make up for breakage and loss they charge 10 per cent. more than the cost prices of the wines, beers, waters and cigars consumed. The officers are not allowed to have distilled spirits in the wine mess.
When you have a dozen or more men eating together three times a day and for weeks confined to their clubrooms the social life of the company is likely to be beset with pitfalls and shoals. You can imagine how it would be on land, especially if military rule prevailed in a club and every member was compelled to spend all his time in it and was superior or inferior in rank to every other man. This matter of rank has to be taken into consideration. The members of the mess are seated according to rank. Still they are equal in the matter of membership of the mess, and between this matter of rank and social equality some delicate situations arise. The man who may cause you to be disciplined sits close to you in the bonds of supposed good fellowship, and to preserve the club feature of the mess calls for a display of restraint that develops character.
It is a primary rule of the military service of the country that an officer must be a gentleman. That means that good breeding, consideration for the feelings of others, kindness, tact and all the other well known qualifications used in defining the word gentleman must govern the conduct of an officer. Good form also requires that there must be no discussion of subjects in the mess that would lead to discord, such as religion or politics. The result is that to the person not familiar with the traditions an officers' mess on board a warship seems to be a place for small talk or else for shop talk. Really there are few places in the world where the word gentleman has a better exemplification. The officers adapt themselves to the situation of enforced close intimacy of months and months in a way that excites admiration. You see, you've got to live with a person to find him out. When you touch elbows with him all the time all his little peculiarities stand out and all his annoyances of manner become conspicuous. The one social task on a ship is to ignore all these things and try to have a companionship as genial as if one's good points alone were on view for a day or two.