“I hope you will not forget the lesson. Control your temper. Unless you are able to manage your own temper you will never be fit to manage other men. You will have to conquer yourself before you can look for promotion in the service.” “Yes, sir.” “You will be placed in the brig for two days, on bread and water, with one full ration in the middle of the second day. And, Kester!” “Yes, sir.” “Your record in the past has not been any too good. I trust I shall not hear of your getting into further trouble. You have been long enough in the service to know how to keep out of mischief.” The captain motioned to the master-at-arms to remove the prisoner. Sam Hickey, with head erect, saluted his superior officers, faced about, marching steadily ahead of the master-at-arms, on his way to be punished for an offense that he felt sure he had not committed. “I wish I’d hit Kester harder, while I was about it,” Hickey muttered. “I’m sorry, lad, but discipline is discipline,” remarked the petty officer as he clanged the door of the brig on Hickey. “It’s all right, Mr. Master-at-Arms. There’s one consolation; I don’t have to scrub decks for the next two days, anyway. That’s some relief.” Sam threw himself down on the steel floor, where he promptly went to sleep. CHAPTER XV—A BAD BANGED-UP BULLY “Oh, why didn’t he tell the captain that Kester had knocked him down,” muttered Dan. “I tried to signal Sam, but he would not even look at me, so interested was he in what was going on. They never would have held him had they known the truth.” The lad went about his duties in a thoughtful mood that afternoon. Dan, by his close attention to duty, his manly bearing, his enthusiasm, had attracted the attention of his superiors. Their eyes were frequently upon him, which was a distinct gain for Dan, in view of the fact that the battleship’s crew consisted of nearly eight hundred men beside her forty officers. Dan did not know that he was being observed, nor would it have affected his conduct in the least had he known it. He had made up his mind to be an officer some day. He felt confident that this great thing would come to pass. But the goal seemed a long way off at the moment, when, with paint brush in hand, he painted and painted from morning until night, varying his occupation late in the day by grabbing up his deck swab, and, in bare feet, joining the deck division in scrubbing down decks. Being a sailor by instinct, the Battleship Boy did not consider any work that he had been ordered to do beneath him. At sunset, that night, the bugle blew for “colors,” meaning the formalities always observed in lowering the Flag at sunset when the ship was at anchor. This was the first time Dan had had an opportunity to see “colors” since he came aboard, for the ship had been under way constantly.