He read a great deal, being embarked upon an ambitious program of self-improvement.
By education Pulver was a metallurgical engineer,
and now read books that he had widely and willingly evaded during his college days.
He read these books because they were the books that Lieutenant Roberts read;
consciously or not, Ensign Pulver had set out to make himself over in Roberts’ image.
With regard to most objects, people, ideas, Pulver was languidly cynical;
with a few he was languidly approving, and with almost none he was overtly enthusiastic.
His admiration for Roberts was utterly unabashed.
He thought that Roberts was the greatest guy he had ever known.
He prodded him with questions on every conceivable subject,
memorized the answers,
then went back to the bunk and assiduously absorbed them into his own conversation.
He watched the careless, easy dignity with which Roberts met the crew,
and studied the way that Roberts got the crew to work for him;
and then he tried to apply this dignity and this control to his own small authority.
Being honest with himself,
he couldn’t notice any increased devotion in the eyes of the men;
or indeed, anything more than the usual tolerance.
It is not very likely that Ensign Pulver would ever have read Santayana,
or the English philosophers,
or Jean Christophe,
or The Magic Mountain,
if he had not seen Roberts reading them.
Before this self-imposed apprenticeship,
he had been content to stay within the philosophical implications of God’s Little Acre.
He had read God’s Little Acre twelve times,
and there were certain passages he could recite flawlessly.
When the girls came aboard that night,
escorted by the two officers,
the entire crew was massed along the rail and up on the bridges.
As the white-stockinged legs tripped up the gangway,
one great, composite, heart-felt whistle rose to the heavens and hung there.
Ensign Pulver’s girl, Miss Girard, had turned out to be a knockout.
At dinner in the wardroom he could scarcely keep his eyes off her,
and no more could the other officers,
who feigned eating and made self-conscious conversation.
Miss Girard had lovely soft blond hair which she wore in bangs,
wide blue innocent eyes, and the pertest nose there ever was.
The total effect was that of radiant innocence; innocence triumphant.
Only Ensign Pulver noted that when she smiled her eyes screwed up shrewdly
and her mouth curved knowingly; but then only Ensign Pulver would.
– Thomas Heggen –