Of course, this amusing assumption would not stand a single hour in a cultured circle. Some periodicals of the day foster the fallacy in many an unfortunate mind that to read about a book is really quite as good as actually to read it. Their readers are led to infer that learning is quite a spare-time affair. I once assured a victim of this delusion that in true culture there was no threepence-in-the-shilling discount; and he wrinkles his brows yet, I believe, wondering what I meant. How many years of close study, my friend, are required to enable one to stroll through a second-hand book-shop, pick up the _one_ treasure from the shelves, and walk out again? It may be, perchance, that I labour this trait in the character of one who would be great but for his disabilities. Which thought recalls to my mind a suspicion that intermittently haunts me--that, living as we do here on this ocean tramp, "thrown together," as the phrase goes, so constantly, faults in another man grow more and more apparent; social abrasions which would be smoothed down and forgotten ashore are roughened at each fresh encounter, until the man is hidden behind one flaming sin. Especially is this to be expected when mind and body are worn, the one with responsibility, the other with rough toil. Who am I that I should claim cultured intercourse from these heroes? Have I not shared their agony and bloody sweat in times of storm and stress? Have I not seen this same wearer of elevators in his engine-room, a blood-stained handkerchief across his head where he has been "smashed," the sweat running from his blackened features, watching his engines with an agony no young mother ever knew?