That worried the old man, who sent word to the chief engineer to rush the repairs and get up steam as soon as he could. "And if there's anything you require you have only to demand it," he says to Furlong, who never stops keeping the wireless on the hop. It was hot in the wireless shack, with everything closed up tight, and there was the steady buzzing and about fourteen colored lights flashing at one time from that bird-cage thing. All I could see were lights, and we had to yell to hear each other talk. And Furlong, who'd been up then for sixteen hours on one stretch, the wireless gear strapped to his head most of the time, was beginning to feel the strain. Nobody to relieve him either. To break up their waves Furlong had to keep giving them all he had, and of course something had to give way. What I know of a wireless outfit wouldn't rate me heavy in a wireless fleet, but the rotary converter or something like it became so hot that Furlong said he'd have to have an electric fan to cool it. "And get it quick!" he calls out after me. The first fan I spotted was in an officer's room that none of us admired much. He was a man who would rate a man higher for tying his neckerchief right than for laying a turret-gun on the target at twelve thousand yards. He was getting ready to turn in. It was a hot night and I knew he'd have trouble trying to sleep without a fan, his room being where it was--near the engine-room ladder--and orders being that all air-ports be kept closed that night. Of course, he didn't want to give up his fan. I didn't waste any time on him--only to say to the flag-lieutenant that it was just the class of fan that Furlong ordered, and the flag-lieutenant tells the officer--still kicking he was--that he'd get an order from the admiral if he desired. On reflection, the officer didn't think a special order from the admiral was necessary, and in a minute or two I was pumping nice cold air on the converter with the fan. Then the brush-holders and the brushes kept getting out of adjustment or something. They were too light to carry the extra current. Before this Furlong had passed the word to the chief electrician, and he had switched on juice enough to run a central office plant ashore. We fixed up the brushes, and everything was doing fine, I thought, when all at once Furlong looks across the table and says: "O, Lord! The condenser-plates!" I never knew before I was shipmates with any such gadgets, but I look around and there are four glass plates about an inch thick and a foot and a half across that the current was boring through. "Sure enough!" I says--"the condenser-plates going to hell. What'll I do with them?" "Find out if there are any thick sheets of glass in the storeroom," says Furlong.