But such cases as these are by no means common. The average sailing-ship steward of to-day is a quiet, inoffensive man, who does his duty unostentatiously, lives rather a solitary life, since the only person he can associate with is the cook, and endeavours to serve out the provisions to the men with perfect justice. If the master carries his wife with him, the steward may be very happy or very much the reverse--he can never plod along in the same easy, jog-trot way as is usual when there is no woman on board. In American and Canadian vessels he is often a negro, and sometimes a Chinaman; but it may be taken for granted that whatever countryman he may be, he is also a paragon, because the American skipper will have nothing less than perfection in cleanliness and service. That must be rendered him whether the steward be white, black, or yellow. And he is ready to enforce it by the rudest and readiest means to hand. Wherefore it follows that he is served as probably no other seafarers in the world are served. But even here the officers are not personally attended by the steward, except when they are at meals. It is the commander who must needs have his every wish anticipated, his linen kept spotlessly white, and the woodwork and the adornments of his cabin as clean, yea, cleaner than on the day they were first fitted into place. Many of the old ships carried stewardesses instead of stewards, often the wife of the cook; and although to some people such an experiment might seem to be one of the extra-hazardous kind, it was not so. The American is a wonderfully chivalrous man towards all women-folk, especially when under his protection.