port) enjoys the same sweet privilege, thus sanctifying the ancient saw, which insists, under penalties dire, that the captain must take her out and the mate must take her home again. The officers vary in their methods of keeping watch, new ships having new rules, as Simple Simon is supposed to have said when he was hustled aft to stow the jib. But to my mind, those favored in the larger steamers of the White Star Company are the best. Here the chief officer stands the watches from six to eight and from twelve to two o’clock, night and day respectively; the second officer keeps the watches from eight to ten and two to four o’clock; and the third officer those from ten to twelve and from four to six o’clock. This watch-keeping seems easy enough, even interesting and exciting, at least so I have heard not only from the casual gentleman who worries about critically in fine weather, but from that uneasy-minded shuttler who skips across the Western Ocean half a dozen times a year for no reason any sane man has yet discovered. But, dearly beloved idlers, do not deceive yourselves, getting out of bed and walking on a roof is anything but gay, even in fine weather. In stormy seasons it is such wretched work that then be mine rather to woo my bucolics, my farms and gardens, my forest glades. [Illustration: The Deck Lookout—“Danger Ahead.”] [Illustration: On the Bridge in a Gale.] Leaving out of question the responsibility, try and measure the physical misery when gales are howling, and spray is flying, and icy seas are shooting over the weather bulwarks, and the ship is slamming along, wallowing in the hollows or wriggling on zenith-seeking billows. It may be at night, when you cannot see a ship’s length ahead, and around you, threatening disaster and death, are a dozen vessels; it may be when the ice is moving and the towering bergs lie in your pathway. Then those dreadful middle watches, when, after a hard tour of duty, you are roused out of a comfortable bed, and jumped, half awakened, into the chill and misery of the gale-blown night with every nerve and muscle strained to the breaking-point. No, it is, believe me, the hardest kind of hard work, and it so saps the body, and warps the temper, and makes the best old before their day, that no self-respecting mother will let her daughter marry a man who knows an oar from a fence-rail, if he has learned their differences—watch-keeping.