So you wander about hither and thither without any well developed plan and run across this and that form of employment and hard daily toil and you wonder how it can be, with so much to do and so little time in which to do it, that proficiency in any one line of work can be secured. Familiarity with it, however, shows that such a condition is approximated, and you begin to feel absolutely confident that if the ship ever did get into a scrap all this work and drill would show its effects at once in a way that would make you proud of the men and the ships of the navy. A sense of confident security comes over you and you soon have the feeling that nobody in the world can beat the Yankee sailor man for man in fighting and no ship of equal capacity in the world can beat the one on which you are sailing in a fight. You may be overconfident, but it's a comfortable kind of feeling to have. You watch the rivalry among the various ships of the fleet in such matters as they can show rivalry in during a cruise as you begin to have confidence in the one on which you are a passenger. When target shooting comes this rivalry will take an impressive form. At present the rivalry consists largely in keeping distances, in making turns accurately, in making and responding to signals. Every morning you watch the flags go up at 10 o'clock, when the signals are hoisted on the second recording the number of sick and absentees on each ship. The officers and men read these flags off quick as a flash and you speculate about the condition of things on this and that vessel. At 11:20 in the morning you watch the flags go up to catch the change of time for all clocks. At noon every one is keen to see the flags sent up telling how much coal has been used and how much each ship has on hand. Then come the flags which give the reckoning of the navigator on each ship as to latitude and longitude, either by observation or dead reckoning, and you comment upon the variations in the reports. So the routine goes on and you get used to it and in some respects become part of it. You even fall into a certain station at certain times. The Sun man, for example, has one place where he is expected to report when the call is made. No other duties are assigned to him as a passenger. He has a certain station when the abandon ship drill takes place. He goes to his station, reports and then is excused. Otherwise he is free to do pretty much as he pleases, always observing as well as he can the little proprieties on shipboard, which are simply those governing the ordinary actions of gentlemen.