The admiral was not on board, but his aide was, and the aide came on to have a look over the side. He saw the mine bouncing up and down between the mine-sweeper's quarter and his own ship's side. Shove off--"get away from us!" yelled the aide. "Suppose you press one of those little feelers and blow us all to pieces--get away, I tell you!" The mine-sweeper skipper looked up--"Feelers, sir?"--and then looked down at the mine. "Feelers, sir? Oh-h, you mean them little 'orns stickin' out on 'er? Bly-mee, sir, I thought I'd knocked 'em all hoff afore I lashed her alongside. But 'ave no fear, sir, there's only two of 'em left, and I'll bloomin' well soon"--he reaches for an oar and went bouncing aft--"bloomin' well soon knock them hoff, too, sir!" THE UNQUENCHABLE DESTROYER BOYS One day last summer a group of our destroyers were sent across the Atlantic. It was a night-and-day strain for all hands--watching out for raiders, watching out for U-boats, watching out for everything, and grabbing snatches of sleep when they could. Arriving at their naval base, every skipper of the little fleet felt pretty well used up. But every worth-while skipper thinks first of his men. One we have in mind passed the word to his crew that whoever cared to take a run ashore to stretch his legs and forget sea things for a while, why--to go to it. And stay till morning quarters if they wished. As fast as they could clean up and shift into shore clothes they were going over the side. Our young captain felt then that perhaps there was a little something coming to himself; so he turned in, and he was logging great things in the sleeping line when the anchor watch, who was also a signal quartermaster, woke him up with: "Signal from the admiralty, sir." "Read it." The S. Q. M. read it--an order to proceed at once to an oil dock and take oil. It was nine o'clock at night when our skipper had come to moorings. It was now one in the morning, and he knew he could have slept for another week; however, orders were to oil up. He turned out and mustered what remained aboard of his crew. There were about a dozen. He sent three to the fire-room, three to the engine-room, one here, another there, himself took the wheel, and with his signal quartermaster acting as a sort of officer of the deck, set out to find the oil dock. He had never seen that harbor before that night, but he sheered close in to every ship's anchor light he saw and hailed for the course to the oil dock. Most of them did not know, but one now and then passed him a word or two, and so he bumped along and by and by made the oil dock.