So the bo'sun of to-day must, in addition to the knowledge possessed by those of bygone days, be an expert at handling wire rope, that is, splicing the refractory stuff. He cannot be content with simply knowing how it should be done, but he must be prepared to educate a crew such as he may very easily find under him--a crew whose only previous experience has been in steamers, and who hardly know one end of a marline-spike from the other. He must be able to keep a ship in thorough repair, going over the mastheads himself, and prying into every detail for little defects, which may bring disaster if not attended to in time. And his mastery of ships' work should be such that it will be sufficient for the mate to say to him, "Bo'sun, I want so-and-so done to-day," and then turn away completely easy in his mind, because he knows that the work will be done, and done well. I have had the misfortune to be once shipmates with, I was going to say, a bad bo'sun; but perhaps the better description of him would be that he was not a seaman at all, much less a bo'sun. We used to call him "the Curiosity," abbreviated to "Curio." He said that he had been bo'sun of the ill-fated _La Plata_. That may have been so, because the vessel was lost only two days after leaving port, although none of us could in the least understand how he had been able to obtain such a berth. At any rate, he managed to get shipped with us in the _Herat_ as bo'sun, and as she was a 1300-ton sailing ship, there was a fair scope for his abilities. We found him out on the first day, although, as nearly all hands were suffering from the last drunk, little notice was taken. But before we cleared the Channel he was made of less account than one of the boys. He was actually ignorant of how to do the most trivial job. Even as a foremast hand he would have had a bad time; as a bo'sun, his sublime audacity took our breath away. The officers were all good men, and were able to carry on the work easily enough, leaving nothing to him but such matters as washing decks or repeating their orders. Then he took to coming into the fo'c'sle, and trying to curry favour with the men by telling them of his varied experiences ashore. By his own confession, he had been a salesman at Mortlock's in Oxford Street, a door-keeper at a West End restaurant, something in the ring at a circus, and other equally curious, out-of-the-way employments. His impudence as well as a certain _bonhomie_, which, however out of place in a bo'sun, would have been admirable in any of the positions he had occupied ashore, softened the crew towards him, and really he did not have such a bad time.