Nothing of the sort. Sometimes a boy would make friends with an officer, who would report favourably upon him to the master at the end of a voyage, and then that master might, if he remembered it or felt so disposed, give to the boy an ordinary seaman's "discharge." Or if he were a big fellow, the boy might get a master to ship him as an O.S., even though he had nothing but a boy's discharge to show. The whole business was as slipshod as it could well be, for it depended entirely upon the caprice or kindliness of the master granting it. There was just this in its favour, that it recognized an A.B. as a seaman who had been through the regular routine of boy and O.S. before he became an A.B., so that the presumption was entirely in favour of his having learned his business. But, as I have shown, perhaps with what might be brutal clearness, in the preceding pages, that has all been changed. Under present conditions you _may_ occasionally find an ordinary seaman on board of a ship, but be very sure that if you do he is having it drummed into him every watch that he is a fool. "Why," he will be asked, "should you ship as O.S. when there's plenty of A.B.'s going that don't know the knight heads from the main-brace, bumpkin? Don't be a fool. You might just as well have the other pound or thirty shillings a month as them fellows that ain't half as good as you are!" And presently he thinks so too, so that he makes up his mind that he'll never be an O.S. any more. That determination is mightily strengthened if he happen to be on board of a ship where there are two or three modern A.B.'s, wastrels who would be dear if they came for nothing a month and found themselves; as, for instance, when I was an O.S. in a big ship going out to New Zealand. There was never a job of work came my way that I didn't do as if it was going before a Bench of Examiners. I was as nervous of blame and delighted at commendation as if I had been striving for a valuable prize. But we had among our A.B.'s four men (if I can call them so) who were not worth a penny a day, and one black night it was my hap to be on the main royal yard with one of them for the purpose of furling the sail. Had the weather been what it should at the furling of this, the loftiest sail in the ship, I should not have so much minded; but our redoubtable skipper was always loth to waste one breath of a fair wind, and so he had "hung on" until it looked as if the three huge masts would have been blown clean out of her. Then all hands were called in hot haste, royals, top-gallant-sails, and other top-sails were lowered all at once, and a pretty fine job it was with our crowd. However, as I have said, I found myself up there on that giddy height, with all those vast sails battering far below me, a gale of wind roaring against me, a sail before me that was straining madly to tear itself away from its confining gear, and a helpmate who was absolutely paralyzed with fear, an A.B. an't please you.