The applicant said he was unmarried, was twenty three years old, and
had been born in New York City. Even Corporal Goddard knew this last
was not so, but it was none of his business, either. He moved the
applicant up against the wall under the measuring-rod, and brought it
down on his head.

So he measured and weighed the applicant, and tested his eyesight with
printed letters and bits of colored yarn, and the lieutenant kept
tally on the sheet, and bit the end of his pen and watched the
applicant's face. There were a great many applicants, and few were
chosen, but none of them had quite the air about him which this one
had. Lieutenant Claflin thought Corporal Goddard was just a bit too
callous in the way he handled the applicant, and too peremptory in his
questions; but he could not tell why Corporal Goddard treated them all
in that way. Then the young officer noticed that the applicant's white
face was flushing, and that he bit his lips when Corporal Goddard
pushed him towards the weighing-machine as he would have moved a
barrel of flour.

"You'll answer," said Lieutenant Claflin, glancing at the sheet. "Your
average is very good. All you've got to do now is to sign this, and
then it will be over." But he did not let go of the sheet in his hand,
as he would have done had he wanted it over. Neither did the applicant
move forward to sign.

"After you have signed this," said the young officer, keeping his eyes
down on the paper before him, "you will have become a servant of the
United States; you will sit in that other room until the office is
closed for to-day, and then you will be led over to the Navy-yard and
put into a uniform, and from that time on for three years you will