There are excellent reasons for these two drawbacks, the lack of creature comforts, luxuries, if you please, and of genial companionship at any hour, in going to sea as a civilian on a warship. Only one need be mentioned. That is that a warship is a tremendously busy workshop where the boss, his assistants and the workmen have a peculiar kind of work on hand, such as exists nowhere else in the world, and there is no time in which to pander to the whims and desires of an outsider sent on board by the order of executive authorities higher up. The work on hand is to move a floating fort of steel swiftly through the water in complete synchronism with a lot of other floating forts and then to prepare those who are engaged in work in this fort for just one thing, to destroy and kill. Everything is subservient to one idea--to be ready to fight at the swiftest pace for just about one hour; for be it known that if one of the warships in this great battle fleet were fought at its swiftest and fullest capacity it would be all over, one way or the other, in an hour or less. You see fighting a warship is not a long distance race; it's a hundred yard dash, to change the figure. Getting ready for that dash, that supreme effort at the fastest speed, calls for all the concentration and hard, unremitting toil that years of education in a complex specialty and years of experience can employ. When this work is going on those engaged in it want outsiders out of the way, and if you're a wise outsider you want to get out of the way. Hence at such times it is likely that you'll get pretty tired standing around on your feet, with no place to rest your weary bones and no companion with whom you can even be bromidic. Yes, it's fine and great to cruise 14,000 miles on a splendid warship, but truly it has some drawbacks.