Before the "Yankee" had been in the Gulf Stream two days, the various guns' crews were almost letter-perfect at battery work.

As it happened, the value of good drilling was soon to be demonstrated.
As we neared Cuba, the theatre of our hopes and expectations, we were scarcely able to control ourselves.

The bare possibility of seeing real war within a few days made every man the victim of a consuming impatience.

Rumors of every description were rife, and the many weird and impossible tales invented by the ship's cook and the captain's steward--the men-o'-war oracles--would have put even Baron Munchausen to the blush.
The Rumor Committee, otherwise known as the "Scuttle-butt Navigators," to which every man on board was elected a life member the moment he promulgated a rumor, was soon actively engaged, and it was definitely settled that the "Yankee" was to become the flagship of the whole fleet, our captain made Lord High Admiral, and the whole Spanish nation swept off the face of the globe, in about thirteen and a half seconds by the chronometer..