them; and when handled with skill, they form the stout instruments
which help essentially to win such battles as the Nile and Trafalgar.

The young persons I have just been describing are, however, by no
means servile imitators of the sailors; they possess much useful
technical knowledge, as well as mere energy of character; and often
both think and act with originality; yet they are docile to the last
degree, and delight in nothing more than fulfilling, to the very
letter, the orders of their superiors. They may amuse themselves, as
youngsters, by affecting the gait, the dress, and the lingo of the
man before the mast; and are at times supposed to be a little too
familiar with these models, on whom they pretend to shape their
manners; but still they never carry the joke so far as to become what
is called "Jack and Tom," even with the leading men in the ship. They
can sing, upon occasion, snatches of forecastle ditties, or fling off
a hornpipe worthy of the merriest cracked fiddle that ever sounded
under the bow of a drunken musician amongst a company, half-seas over,
at the back of Point Beach. Not content with

"Their long-quartered shoes, check shirt, and blue jacket,"

they will even thrust a quid into their cheek, merely to gain the
credit, such as it is, of "chewing backy like a sailor."

But there must be a limit to the indulgence of these fancies; and if
even an elder midshipman or mate of the decks were permanently to
distinguish himself after this masquerade fashion, he would speedily
lose caste even with the crew. When a mid, for example, is promoted to
lieutenant, he must speedily decide whether he shall follow up in
earnest a course of strictly seaman-like objects, of which the mere