and, if the impulse be very strong, will get a commission in the navy.
However, if circumstances compel a Tapleyan "coming out strong," they
will sometimes face their work, and that right nobly; for there is
nowhere that gentle blood so tells as at sea. The utter absence of all
sham or room for sham brings out true and noble qualities as well as
mean and selfish ones. For ordinary work, one man's muscle is as good
as another's. It is only when the time of trial comes,--when the
volunteers are called to man the boat that is to venture through the
wild seas to pick off the crew of a foundering wreck,--"when the
jerking, slatting sail overhead must be got in somehow," though topmast
and yard and sail may go any minute,--when the quailing mate or
frightened captain dares not _order_ men to all but certain death, and
still less dares to _lead_,--then it is, when the lives of all hang on
the heroism of one, that the good blood will assert itself.

Then there is the class who are _sent_ to sea,--scapegraces all. The
alternative is not unfrequently the one of which Dr. Johnson chose the
other side. The Doctor being _sans question_ a landsman, _he_ never
saw, we warrant, any resemblance to fore and main and mizzen in the
three spires of Litchfield. But the Doctor, not being a scamp, was not
compelled to choose. Many another is not so well off. Like little boys
who are sent to school, they learn what they learn from pretty much the
same motive. Sometimes they turn out good and gallant men; but not
often does it reform a man who is unfit for the shore to dispatch him
to sea. If there are any vices he does not carry with him, they are
commonly to be had dog- and dirt-cheap at the first port his ship
makes.

Then, last of all, there is a large and increasing class who _get_ to
sea. They fall into the calling, they cannot tell how; they continue in