“You people _are_ fresh from Dartmouth, you know! A Snotty Walloper doesn’t look after snotties as a Term Lieutenant at the colleges looks after cadets. Baring’s job is to see we keep our watches, run our boats, work out our yearly sights, and do our instruction. He signs the Leave Book, and occasionally he invites one of us to dine with him in the Wardroom. That’s all. You don’t go to him with your troubles. When you come to sea you have to look out for yourself and square your own yard-arm. No one interferes except in matters affecting discipline. Your private life is your own so long as you don’t make a public exhibition of yourself when you go ashore.... Oh no, don’t imagine that Baring would trouble his head about what Krame does to you. It’s none of his business. And what’s more, nobody wants the Wardroom to interfere in what the Gunroom does. You don’t want it yourself. Etiquette about that sort of thing is very strong.” For some time the conversation drifted away to Dartmouth days, but Lynwood’s thoughts ran on. The prospect of independence, of complete emancipation from leading-strings, attracted him. He compared his life with that of boys of his own age at public schools, and found, almost to his surprise, that he would be unwilling to accept their comfort and security in exchange for the privileges of responsibility. All midshipmen regard schoolboys with a certain contempt. They are launched into the world while their brothers are but preparing for it. They command, not a football fifteen, but a boat’s crew. They have experience of men and women whose very existence is not yet, and perhaps never will be a reality to the shore-going folk of their own class. And daily, in the ordinary course of routine, they carry--though it does not strike them in this way--their own lives and the lives of others in their hands. All this begets a rare pride, the pride of one who for the first time signs his own cheque and rejoices silently in the possession of his own banking account. Lynwood awoke from a day-dream to find himself staring at one of the pictures above Reedham’s head. “Those pictures,” he said suddenly, “aren’t they appalling?” “They are pretty vile,” Reedham agreed. “But they are a Gunroom custom. I don’t see what other pictures you could have. Really good ones would look horribly out of place. Besides, the kind we have is what most people like.” “Well, if ever I’m Sub of a Gunroom,” said Lynwood, “I’ll have good pictures or none at all.” “Probably you will think differently then,” Reedham answered, with a smile of experience. “One’s ideas change at sea. One gets accustomed, you know.”