But we were getting in a new mess every ten minutes. The keys weren't heavy enough to stand the continuous pounding under the current Furlong was giving 'em. One set of points was already burned off--he had to ship new keys. Then it was back to the new condenser-plates, which didn't seem to be of the best quality of glass and were beginning to fuse worse than the old ones. They were going fast and Furlong was puzzled--for a while. Then--"Tallow!" he hollers, and away hustles the flag-lieutenant for the paymaster, who was already turned in and sound asleep 'spite of the heat, for he had a good fan in his room--being the paymaster. He was shook up, broke out the stores, and four condenser-plates of tallow were moulded; but as soon as Furlong sees what kind of tallow it was, he says they couldn't be made to work without they were coated with tin-foil or something like it. "Tin-foil? But where shall we obtain tin-foil?" says the flag-lieutenant. "Have you no tin-foil?" says he to the paymaster, who said no, he had no such item in his lists. "There's a lot of tobacco in the canteen and a couple of hundred cases of tea below," says Furlong to the flag-lieutenant. "O yes, the tobacco and the tea!" says the flag-lieutenant, and they send down three or four husky lads to break out the commissary yeoman, or whatever his rating was, out of his hammock. You could hear him yelling clear up on the superstructure when they landed him onto the deck, for by this time half of the ship's crew began to guess that something was going on, and whoever could get near enough to lay hands on that commissary yeoman was helping to hustle him along to his shack. "Ganavitch! ganavitch!" he kept saying, or something like that; and the flag-lieutenant sent up to Furlong to ask, now they had him, what was he to do? "Break out your tobacco and your tea!" yells Furlong, who, with the receiver strapped to his head and the fingers of one hand pounding the key and the other motioning me to hurry on the thrilling messages which I was reading from the back pages of an American magazine: The - forty - horse - power - Camarac - is - the - machine - how - about - C. B. & Q. - corsets - to - pinch - in - your - shape - send - for - our - latest - catalogue - with - illustrations - add - an - inch - to - your - height - why - be - poor - the - best - abana - cigars - two - dollars - the - hundred - observe - that - curve - use - the - instantaneous - safety - razor - no - honing - no - strapping---- For some time before this I'd seen how foolish it was to be straining your brain inventing messages to send when there they lay ready printed to your hand, and so 'twas: --pneumatic - soap - she - floats - why - pay - rent - don't - you - think - uneeda - wash - write - us - for - free - sample---- I kept calling it out and Furlong kept banging it away on the key. The flag-lieutenant sticks his head in. "What shall the commissary yeoman do with the tobacco and the tea?"