My experience in the navy was helping me wonderfully, when something occurred demanding immediate action, an unforeseen exigency in the shape of another messenger. This time it was the first mate of the transport _Thomas_, Mr. Worth, who, to add to my chain of humiliating circumstances, informed me that three ladies were awaiting me on the promenade deck, two of them Hawaiians, the third an American. They had missed the messenger (thanks for his carelessness!). “For heaven’s sake!” I exclaimed; “I am not on board, mate! I am in Japan.” “Oh, they are wise; they have been talking to an officer, and he has sent an orderly to find you; so come on up; they look good to me and they are anxious to see you.” (Oh, if I only had that messenger, what I’d do to him!) “Tell them I will be there in a moment,” I exclaimed, as I went below for some letters a member of the crew had consented to mail. In a few moments I had scaled the ladder to the promenade deck, where I met the jolliest trio of femininity it has been my pleasure to commune with. They told me what great friends they were of my cousin, of her writing them of my departure from the Philippines, of the explanatory letter awaiting me at Young’s Hotel, and all about the big touring-car awaiting us at the pier, et cetera. Two of these ladies were perfect types of Hawaiian beauty, Vassar graduates, and members of the obsolete nobility, the other a typical American girl, a tourist, and daughter of a retired naval officer. I was aware that my cousin had spent the previous winter in Honolulu, and understood, from the message, that she had written her friends of my home-coming _via_ the Hawaiian Islands on the transport _Thomas_, so that an apology for my failure to comply with the request in the message could hardly be avoided. So it became imperative that I disclose the facts in connection with the deprivation of our shore leave,――how we overstayed our liberty in Japan, and the denial of my presence on board the transport. Being jolly good fellows, these ladies considered this predicament a great joke, as they had visited Japan, and I presume knew the irresistible fascinations of the “Flowery Kingdom.” But that was neither here nor there: they had come on board to take me ashore, and ashore I must go.