signed for an aëroplane carrier, but they changed her into a submarine tender.”
“Oh, I see,” responded Henry. “I suppose that explains the long, flat top of her superstructure. “That’s where the aëroplanes were to alight at sea.”
Henry thanked his informant and hurried on. He saw the great collier Neptune, and an oil carrier, the Arethusa, and the scout cruiser Chester. 'The latter two lay side by side, and it made Henry actually laugh to see the difference in their build. The swift scout cruiser was lean and high, the oil carrier lower and fat, with sides that actually bulged. The two ships were as different in appearance as a lean greyhound and a fat collie.
But of all the craft in the Navy Yard none so fascinated Henry as the old battleship Constitution. For there, close beside these modern ships of war, lay old Ironsides, the frigate of forty battles, in which she never knew defeat, the oldest and most famous vessel in the United States Navy. There she lay, almost as old as the nation itself, for she was built in 1797, and she was yet sound.
Thrilled by the sight, Henry stood on the pier beside her and examined her every rope and spar. Her hull was one of those blocky, bulky, upstanding structures typical of the long ago.