On the other hand, it may very well be that a ship's-carpenter sometimes comes in for an overwhelming pressure of work which taxes all his energies to cope with. On one occasion, in my own experience, the skipper of a big ship, as we then considered her, bound from Liverpool to Bombay brought with him to sea a number of huge rough spars, bought cheaply, I suppose. These he purposed to replace the yards that were already doing duty aloft, and as soon as opportunity offered the work was begun. It was a tremendous task for one man to undertake; but our Chips, although it was only his second voyage to sea, was fully equal to the demand made upon his skill and strength. More than that, he was able to train sundry members of the crew in the handling of broad axe and rip-saw, so that they could take off him the most laborious part of the work. During a calm that persisted for eight weeks, we practically shifted every yard in the ship, working all day long, and--shall I say it?--sleeping all night. I will not go so far as to say that the man at the wheel went to sleep, but I dare not say that he did not, for no demand was made upon his steering skill by the ship--she lay as nearly motionless as a ship can lie upon the ocean. It was then that I learned how wonderful a tool in the hand of an expert is the adze. Our Chips seemed to prefer it to all his other tools, and the way he made it serve him was marvellous. I heard him tell a story of how some braggart was boasting in the yard of his skill with the adze, when an old carpenter challenged him to take off a shaving under his foot, staking his week's wages that he, the challenger, would take off the thinnest. The boaster tried, and succeeded in slitting the sole of his new boot, at which there was much laughter. Then the veteran, taking off his shoe and stocking, placed his naked foot upon the plank, and swinging his adze over his head, brought it down with a whir. On removing his foot, a shaving no thicker than note-paper lay upon the broad blade of the adze. And the old man slyly said, "Ah dinna keer fur reskin' a guid peyr o' butes in a ploy laik this yin. But it'll mebbe teach ye no' to give way tae ungodly boastin' agin." I have no difficulty in believing the story, having seen the truly marvellous way in which this awkward-looking (to a novice) but ancient tool is handled by an expert shipwright. That same carpenter mended the skipper's wife's sewing-machine, "sorrted," as he would say, the same lady's bracelet. In fact, he was always being called upon to do some job as far removed from carpenters' work as one could well imagine, and always-succeeded.