fired a yellow cannon-ball at me. I ducked and everyone cheered. The Cap'n smiled (I don't know why, after all, he had missed me), and then took the yellow cannon-ball from where it had lodged in the net and swam to the middle of the pool. Now you wouldn't believe it, but that cannon- ball floated. Some of the players had sunk, but the cannon-ball floated.

Once again the police must've come (for I heard the whistle) and everyone roared around in grand style. It was something to behold! with waves and cannon-balls, fists and fingers, shouts and curses, whistles and screams...all rending the air in a magnificent way. Oh, I tell you it was grand...simply grand!

By and by things began to settle a mite, and someone with a white cap on his head (named "Good-Time" Charlie) allowed that his side was beating the other faction who were blue caps. He ventured that his team had 10 goals (whatever that means) while the others had but one. Immediately following this announcement the Cap'n poked his blue- capped head above the others and declared that the next goal would determine the winners, and that the losers would "put the nets away." His words produced an immediate effect on the white-capped team leading 10-1, who muttered and moaned and began to tread water violently, until the police came again (whistle) and chaos resumed. As luck would have it--bad for blue, good for white--the game ended in favor of white. But it seemed the blue team was in a hurry to attend a meeting, so the winners had to hang up the nets all the same.

I saw them--the blue team--once more as I shoved off for home. They were entering their meeting hall I reckoned. Something called the First and Last....

Surf and "Portraits from the Past" have been suspended for one issue in order to make room for these two hallmarks of poetry contributed by Patton team members: