"So our men in the old days actually used to steal the water out of the breakers, the small casks kept in the boats at all times in case of emergency, such as shipwreck. That is what I mean by committing crime. We actually used to steal from the most important supply on the ship just for the sake of keeping ourselves clean. "For uncleanliness a man would be stripped naked and his skin scrubbed with sand and canvas--no man ever forgot it who experienced that--and sometimes with ki-yar brushes, by two husky bos'n's mates. All hands soon got the habit of being clean." There was much interest on the ships as to how the wireless telephone would work out. The system has been in operation only a few months and is largely in the experimental and almost the infantile stage. All of the battleships are equipped with the apparatus and there was no doubt about it, you could talk to any ship in the fleet from any other and at times the sounds of the voice were as clear as through an ordinary telephone. At times they weren't, and there was a division of opinion among the officers as to the real value of the invention. As is the case with the wireless telegraph only one ship of a fleet can use the telephone at one time. While one ship is talking to another all the other ships must keep out of it and even the ship to which the message is being sent must keep still and not break in. The receiver must wait until the sender has got all through with what he has to say and then he can talk back. The sending and receiving machines use part of the apparatus of the wireless telegraph outfit. If an attempt is made to use the telegraph while the telephone is in use the telephone goes out of commission at once because it is absolutely drowned out. The telegraph apparatus uses so much greater power that it is like a loud voice overwhelming a soft one. The operator at the telephone would sound a signal with some sort of a buzzer that had the wail of a lost cat in its voice and then he would put a little megaphone into the mouthpiece of the telephone and would say, sharp and clear: "Minnesota! Minnesota! Minnesota! This is the Louisiana! This is the Louisiana! This is the Louisiana! We have a press message for you to send to the beach. We have a press message for you to send to the beach. Do you hear us? Do you hear us? Minnesota! Minnesota! This is the Louisiana! Go ahead! Go ahead!" Sometimes the message would fail. Sometimes the wireless, one kind or the other, would be working on other ships. Sometimes the answer would come at once and the operator would write down the reply and hand it over to you.