The members of the battalion were rated as landsmen, ordinary seamen, and able-bodied seamen, according to their skill, and a number of men, hastily enlisted for the purpose, were made machinists, firemen, coal-passers, painters, and carpenters.

Some of these had seen service in the regular navy, and they were visibly horny-handed sons of toil.
One Irishman, whose brogue was painful, looked with something very like contempt on the Naval Reserve sailors.
"Uncle Sam is a queer bird," several of us overheard him remark to a mate.

"He do be making a picnic av this war wid his pleasure boats an' his crew av pretty b'yes.

If we iver tackle the Spaniards, there'll be many a mama's baby on board this hooker cryin' for home, swate home." "Hod," a six-footer, who played quarter-back on a famous team not long ago, took out his notebook and made an entry.
"I'll spot that fellow and make him eat his words before we get into deep water," he said, quietly.

He was not the only one to make that vow, and it was plain that Burke, the Irishman, had trouble in store for him.
On our return to the "New Hampshire," the battalion was placed under the regular ship's routine.