staff should suddenly be visited with flood, fire, and famine. After this gracious and purely gratuitous piece of information, he again withdrew, but strange mutterings still continued to issue forth from his lair.

While I was sitting in the office, the editor happened to drift in from the adjacent room crisply attired in a pair of ragged, disreputable trousers and a sleeveless gray sweater which was raveling in numerous places. It was the shock of my life.
"Where's our yeoman?" he grumbled, at which the yeoman, who somehow reminded me of some character from one of Dickens's novels, edged out of the door, but he was too late. Spying him, the editor launched forth on a violent denunciation, in which for no particular reason the cartoonist and sporting editor joined. There they stood, the three of them, abusing this poor simple yeoman in the most unnecessary manner as far as I could make out. Three harder cut-throats I have never encountered.

While in the office, I came upon a rather elderly artist crouched over in a corner writhing as if he was in great pain. He was in the throes of composition, I was told, and he looked it. Poor wretch, he seemed to have something on his mind. The only man I saw who seemed to have anything like a balanced mind was the financial shark, a little ferret-eyed, ornery-looking cuss whom I wouldn't have trusted out of my sight. He was sitting with his nose thrust in some dusty volume totally oblivious of the pandemonium that reigned around him. He either has a great mind or none at all--probably the latter. I fear I would never make an editor. The atmosphere is simply altogether too strenuous for me.

_May 4th._ There seems to be no place in the service for me; I cannot decide what rating to select. To be a quartermaster one must know how to signal, and signaling always tires my arms. One must know how to blow a horrid shrill little whistle in order to become a boatswain mate, and my ears could never stand this. To be a yeoman, it is necessary to know how to rattle papers in an important manner and disseminate misinformation with a straight face, and this I could never do. I fear the only thing left for me is to try for a commission. I'm sure I would be a valuable addition to any wardroom.

_May 6th._ "Man the drags! Hey, there, you flannel-footed camel, stop galloping! What are you doing, anyway--playing horses?"
"Don't be ridiculous," I cried out, hot with rage and humiliation; "you know perfectly well I'm not playing horse. I realize as well as you do that this is a serious--"

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