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Show Bi a Licutenaiii in the United Slates lUvi MOTOR FAULTS AWTKK? She Isn't in It not with 11 mini .iiml liis nincliltie. The ill-vim- harmony of married bliss, the f.-.'iiilo concord of llfi-Km- companionship, companion-ship, the pnsxionnte pivlude to life itself, nre ns ,illst i,0fol.0 (he i,yl,lloUc bonds of mechanism. Observe the oliu-f eloctrlcinr. on wnk-h. About him lmm nlui roar aild thump n nil purr tho million parts 0f a monster f.t;,-of-war. Overhead may Hush jin-nt teams of honvy gnus null hurl their stool death into tho enemy. JIen may be dying Up there. Or a twelve-ton broadside may this moment be in flight toward the heart of the dynamo room itself. lie is wiiti-lilng his motor. Four fat turbo generators are sucking 'juice' out of the air or wherever juice comes from and feeding it through the ship. I'lirt of it feeds the spinning motor. And an invisible nmn-magnetisin in the process has seized the chief and drawn quintessence of interest from his mind :nil body. Suddenly electric lamps about grow brighter. Katlter pleasant, one, would think, to have more light. Not so the chief. To him one bit of unusual brilliancy bril-liancy means turbine speed too high. Too much current is squirting through the cuprie nerves of his paramour. With a practised hand he shifts a valve. Steam drops the fraction of a pound and lamps come natural again. Eyes bright from concentration shift to the ammeter, a dial, that shows the current. Its feathered needle moves with the motor's pulse, a pulse of blood more strange than space, twice as invisible, yet potent beyond man's runy measurements. Voltmeter gives him the pressure of this blood. Crackle of tiny sparks here and there point to many leaks in the tender skin of Insulation. Perhaps a slight fever warms the sturdy magnets mag-nets at the motor's forehead an overload over-load or short in the circuit would do it. So the chief does this and that with his switches, and his armature brushes, and his resisting rheostat, until un-til his loved one rests more easily. Mayhap a burst of blinding flame stuns him. He may flinch in the heat of 'It. Five-hundred volts leap short yaps with almost volcanic intensity. But the chief leaps to his circuit breaker with a ferocity of defense. His own body is nothing. 'Tis the motor he would save. -. Ko misogynist is this not with a. ' love like that I Bachelor at forty; call him a celibate if you please. But the motor's faults are not the follies of a woman. They are the weak points in the chief's electrical efficiency. Ee knows this. The clean truth of it .holds him. He sticks to the navy, to his motor; and his love is very genuine. SUBMARINE BELL THERE is a certain warship skipper skip-per who calls attention to the spreading gray about his temples. Not that he is proud of this mark of age, but because it runs no further than his ears. "My gray hairs stop," he explains, ex-plains, "because I always know just when to stop worrying." His friends; however, "have one on him." 'Twas the submarine bell that got the placid skipper's goat. i This gadget as we say in the navy, meaning thingumbob is a device for transmitting sound signals under water. wa-ter. Large lightships such as Nantucket Nan-tucket have a heavy bell suspended deep in the water. By an automatic device a clapper strikes at regular intervals. in-tervals. Each bell along the coast has its characteristic interval and number jf strokes. All large ships and men-of-war are fitted with receivers for capturing the sound waves set up under water by ihese bells. In the outer bottom is a small box filled with water and containing con-taining a very sensitive diaphragm which vibrates in tune with the bell. Through telephonic connection one may catch the signals from the bridge or any other part of the ship. Since the receivers are on each side sound conies most distinctly when the bell is nearly on the beam. From four i to live miles is the average limit of range. One thick March morning our self-contained self-contained friend was approaching New ...n rf.liore York. Thougn ne "as - the soupv fog made him anxious about Ms landfall. Tutting his submarine telephone to his ear he suddenly heard the clear note of n bell. "That's queer, s he exclaimed, "We oughn't to be anywhere any-where near the lightship yet." He swung the battleship about m order to find which heading blotted ont ,e sound, in this way he could obtain an, approximate bearing of the '' lunflne bell kept on. It played res-,;' res-,;' chimes, increasing and tecvens-!- To the consternation of the sk.p-,.,. sk.p-,.,. e was unable to determine etthei 1 ,' distance, direction, or character o the cny thing. "Cnn it ' Mnd of enemy infernal machine." he , wondered. . , ,, hl.rll,I1P frantic. He c, e, the p,,-Wa.oi-. the lightship, the oll.cc.-of-M,;.mU; ami ... nil hlps ini o.Ueci-s. in a flual paroxye.ni of , -o:-:-v.v.v.-,v,-.v.-,v.v-.'.v.v.v;v anxiety he sent someone to investigate his receiving box In the doable bottoms. bot-toms. Which disclosed a single happy whistling busy; bluejacket, chipping Paint. And every time the sailor struck the bulkhead his signal carried direct to the perplexed bridge gang. So even the skipper had his off day. SEA OUTFIT IN MOMENTS of great stress we are very human ; also genuine. We tend to reveal that which is most characteristic character-istic of our whole makeup. Take the case of a certain commander comman-der who received orders at sea. Such a change means little to the bluejacket. bluejack-et. He Is younger and more temporary tempo-rary in the service. When Uncle Sara lobs him from beach to battleboat, "I Should Worry" is the tune to which he inarches. For the "gob" lucky dog-takes dog-takes a turn round ditty box and bag with hammock furled beside, ind beats it. But a commander doesn't swing In a hammock ; and a dozen ditty boxes and bags wouldn't hold the mess of uniforms he must have. Also there are his civilian togs, and swords, and books, and filing cases, and a multitude multi-tude of other belongings. Yet he has cut to bare necessities. "No, 'my dear," to his tearful .wife says he, "I cannot take those sofa pillows pil-lows for my bunk. But I need the sheets and pillowcases. Four blankets will be more than enough. And don't forget the towels and a sewing kit." She doesn't. Nor does she overlook his winter underwear and sweaters for a sudden northern cruise. When he isn't watching she darns up all his socks and his whites. Knowing his absentmiudedness she tucks in , odd corners of his sea chest small packages pack-ages of pins and pipes and spare shaving shav-ing gear and shoestrings and mittens imd mufflers and woolen socks, and an old panama hat for Cuban waters. She insists on including an alcohol stove for a midnight mug up on the gale-cut bridge. She gets ready his sea diary and has his binoculars cleaned. She finds has epaulettes need new straps and puts in a mean half-hour splicing up his sword knot. Finally, If she's wise, she sends in a subscription for her commander's favorite magazine and arranges to have fresh fruit sent him when in port. As a last touch with bags and boxes packed and ready she slips in a little picture of herself. "He'll probably miss it when he gets there," she murmurs. mur-murs. Months later he's home again, and he talks a bit. "Oh yes," says he offhandedly, off-handedly, "just as the old tub was about to break up I slipped into my room and got your picture." Whereupon he hauls out and hands her the most important item of a commander's com-mander's sea outfit. MACHINERY INSPECTOR AN EXPLORER will return to the drear loneliness of the wilderness. wilder-ness. A convict free will find himself strangely longiug for the bitterness of captivity. So strong Is the hold environment en-vironment can take on .the soul of a man. On a ship in the fleet served a good seagoing chief engineer. But he had been at sea too long. He was growing stale. So he asked for shore duty. lie was transferred to a huge steel n,iU where government contracts were tilled. For two years he was to hear the hum of lathe and scraper insiead of the pound and the wheeze of his own engines. Instead of the lntermit-' lntermit-' tent roar of the turreted guns he was to be half-deafened by the more steady be,cbing of gigantic blast furnaces. His title was Naval Inspector of Machinery. Ma-chinery. 1 , 4. superdreadnanght was launched. Tr'e inspector supervised the installa-tion installa-tion of her mighty engines. His responsibility re-sponsibility increased tip to the day of lKOnnthis day a board of inspection and survey came down In full regalia to hold official tests of the new war ", Tbe inspector met the big bugs Ifpropi' form, but he didn't look 'Terhnps It was the sheaf of papers and records he produced that filled him ?,m of gloom. For instance there were , iT.ht tables for parts and fittings nd auxiliaries and full boilers as well : empty ones; it may have been his ion, monotonous report comparing the mushed product to the original sped- fi The' machinery inspector was gray , Facts and figures had be- " to :' 'on bis nerves. Indoor work n suTlen his tan. Ami when he u led the trial board through their , s in trvins out the newest of our ofw-u lm realized he'd had i'Ct, "?ess HI Put in f"r the fleet again," he declared. I don' seem to do so weil here." te was wrong. Few inspectors before be-fore him bad been his equal. The truth ,ltf old. old truth: He was honie-k honie-k for the heave of a plated dork t ,0 swish of oil.v MIP. " ' I roal h out of the starboard baton j ' ..s,ave of the sea" is the nght ' name after all. |