It was all very sordid and pitiful, a side path of seafaring that must have lent itself to many abuses, through which many a poor misguided lad got away to sea, and found no place for repentance until too late. I have only mentioned it here, because in speaking of the boy I am painfully reminded of the great number of miserable little sea-drudges who are still to be found in these vessels, leading the hardest of lives, and uncared for by any one. They are worthy of all sympathy, being so helpless, so unable to raise themselves. Their environment is as bad as it can well be, for, whether ashore or afloat, the company they are in is usually of a very bad kind. Now and then, of course, such a vessel will have a good, steady seaman, who has an interest in her, for a skipper. A man like that will often carry his wife, and will endeavour to keep a respectable crew with him voyage after voyage. And as likely as not he will take an interest in the boy, and try to make something of him. Here, as far as the sailor _personnel_ of merchant ships is concerned, my task ends. Several times during its performance I have felt that perhaps I should have done better to begin with the boy and end with the skipper, as being the more natural way. But I hope that what I have done, as well as the way in which it has been done, will be acceptable to shore-folks, for whom it is written. Sailors do not require any information of the kind. And now for a few words on behalf of the men of iron who toil below. CHAPTER XXXIII. THE ENGINEER. These concluding chapters should be written by an engineer; for no sailor, whatever his position may have been, is fully competent to judge of the work performed by the handlers of marine engines. Much less is he able to appreciate the position of those toiling helots of civilization, the firemen and trimmers. The benefits of steam are vast and undeniable; but it is not good to forget that the service of steam to-day means a truly awful burden of labour and risk laid upon a large army of civilized men. I believe I shall carry with me the assent of every one who knows anything about the facts when I say that of all modern occupations there is not one so terribly exhausting, so full of peril, as that of the servants of the marine engine at work. The marvel of marvels to me is that men can be found to undertake the task so readily. And if this be true of the Merchant Service, as I hold it is, plain unvarnished truth, it is doubly true of the same work, or what answers to the same description of work, in the Royal Navy. For there the manifold complications of ship-propelling machinery are immensely more intricate, the conditions under which the men labour are far more arduous, and, in addition, there is always the fighting risk superadded.