“Join a ship? Indeed we should,” answered Dan, his eyes glowing with pleasure. “You boys, I believe, joined from the same place?” “Yes, sir.” “H-m-m-m!” mused the executive officer, consulting the enlistment record of the two apprentices. “Piedmont?” “Yes, sir.” “You would like to be shipmates, would you not?” “We should like it very much, indeed. If it were possible, I wish we might be placed on the same ship,” replied Dan. “I will arrange it,” replied Lieutenant Commander Devall, consulting several papers from the mass with which his desk was littered. “Several details are being sent out to various ships to-day. I was under the impression that one ship on my list asked for two ordinary seamen. Ah, yes, here it is. Yes, that will be all right. I shall assign you, but, of course, I cannot promise that you will be retained indefinitely in that way. You may be reassigned to some other part of the service at any time, but it is not likely that this will be done for some time, yet.” “May I ask, sir, to what ship you will assign us?” “Yes; the battleship ‘Long Island.’” “The ‘Long Island,’” mused Dan. “The ‘Long Island,’” repeated Sam under his breath. “That is the new battleship, is it not, sir?” “The newest one in the Atlantic fleet. She has just had her trial trip, and has been accepted by the government. I am very glad to be able to give you this detail, for you are a pair of likely young men. Your record at the station has been a splendid one, and your promotion deserved.” “Thank you, sir. You know we have some marks against us,” spoke up Dan. “I was thinking of that. Let me see. There appears to be some doubt about those extra duty tours—I mean to say as to whether you men were wholly in the wrong. Have you any reason to suspect that others were trying to get you into trouble?” “Yes, sir; we have had reason to suspect as much,” answered Dan after an instant’s hesitation. “Whom did you suspect?” “There can be no harm now, sir, in saying that we suspected the fellow Flink.” “Yet you made no report of it?” “How could we, sir? We had little on which to base our suspicions, and besides it did not seem the manly thing to do, to carry tales about one’s shipmates.” “He’s the fellow, sir, who threw the pie,” spoke up Hickey. “What’s that?” “Threw the pie.” Sam did not heed the warning look from his companion. “The day we entered the training school.”