The pumps are under the carpenter's charge. He knows not only how to fit their boxes and renew the packing--many sailors have that knowledge--but he can invent in time of need substitutes for leather, and by all sorts of devices make it possible to keep the hold clear of water. Also he is responsible for the due working and up-keep of the iron-work aloft. The great trusses and goose-necks upon which the massive yards are balanced, so that they swing from one side to the other, are his care; he visits them at regular weekly intervals with oil feeder and scraper, and with minute scrutiny assures himself that there are no flaws in them which may in a moment of stress extend into breaks, and let half the ship's company go howling to leeward, and be swallowed up in the hissing vortex of white foam that surges hungrily upward. He attends to the due working of iron block and sheaves, and examines with a critical eye both masts and yards for flaws. To do this, it is necessary that he be able to climb in any weather, since the gear is permanently fixed aloft, and thither he must go to examine it. But it is seldom that he is called upon to work aloft unless he be an ardent seaman as well as a carpenter. Some members of the honoured family of "Chips" I have known who scorned to be left on deck when a rising gale demanded the services of all hands to shorten sail. They were as keen and eager to wrestle with the mighty wings thundering at their confining gear as any purely seafaring man that ever hung on to a jackstay by his eyebrows, or scorned to secure himself on a yard by thrusting his arm through a becket. There was never any need to call them specially when it was all hands; they were always on deck with a leap, as if they had been waiting ready rigged for the word, although had one gone into their berths for anything an instant before the cry was given he would have found them sleeping with the care-free soundness of the sailor.