On certain mornings of the week certain drills are always gone through with. You know when it is ordinary quarters, when fire, collision and abandon ship practice is to be gone through with, when certain kinds of gun practice are tried out. You know just how often this and that division goes through with "pingpong" shooting, the work with what are known as Morris tubes, the kind of shooting that has superseded to a large extent the former sub-calibre practice on shipboard. You then learn all about hammock and bag inspection days, you even get to know when the flagship will probably order hammocks or bags scrubbed and you get to know just about how often the clotheslines will be strung up over the fo'c'stle and just how often bedding will be hung on the rails for airing and when it will be taken in and all that. You get used to seeing the lanterns put in the lifeboats at night for emergency use. You know that every half hour when the ship's bell is struck the sentry on the quarter deck will turn toward the after bridge and will sing out: "Life buoys, aft; all's well!" You know that up on the forward bridge with every "bell" the port and starboard side lights will be reported burning in the same manner. You know how often the marine guard is changed and what the stations are. You know that on Saturday morning there will be no quarters and that all hands will be set to cleaning the decks with sand and holystones and that the mud, if a combination of sand and water can be called mud, will be so thick that for nearly all the morning you will have to wear rubbers if you want to get about in comfort. You know when bright work will be cleaned and you know when the smoking lamp will be lighted, which means at just what hours smoking will be permitted, for there is no real lamp in these days when nearly everything on a warship is run by electricity. You get to know just when the awkward squad of marines will be drilled and you know when the patent log, which is watched most carefully and which nearly everybody scoffs at because one never can depend much upon it, will be read. You know soon from the color of the water when you are on soundings, and you gather about the little contrivance far back on the quarter deck which unreels the wire for the lead that goes swishing hundreds of fathoms into the sea and finally brings up on the bottom and then records the depth. You gather about the chief quartermaster as he has the line pulled in and you look with him at the thermometerlike arrangement which by discoloration shows the depth of the water. You know just how often the temperature of the sea will be taken and how often the temperature of the air will be recorded in the log and the height of the barometer set down.