THE COOK (SAILING SHIPS)--_continued_. Salt junk--The never-satisfied sailor--Pork and peas--Dirty cooking--Abysmal ignorance--A lower depth--Bad weather 215 CHAPTER XXV. THE APPRENTICE (SUGGESTIONS). A serious matter--Want of knowledge--The system of apprenticeship--Need for revision--The influx of foreign officers--No want of aspirants here--An experience of my own--No-premium apprentices--Training ships--The housing of sea apprentices--A vexed question--To stop the waste of young seamen--An A.B. no mere labourer--A good example--A model ship for apprentices--Training ships in America 223 CHAPTER XXVI. THE APPRENTICE (SOME FACTS CONCERNING HIS LIFE). The average boy's helplessness--The need for lessons in homely things--An unhappy home--Waste of outfit--Need of personal supervision--And honest treatment--Apprentices substituted for sailors--Some instances--All depends upon the master--Wasted years--The embryo officer in the U.S. and Canada 234 CHAPTER XXVII. THE APPRENTICE (SOME PRACTICAL INFORMATION). How to get your boy to sea--Beware of the apprenticeship broker--A typical instance--Some hints as to outfit--A list of necessaries--The choice of a ship--Personal relations of parents with officers--Hints to apprentices themselves 244 CHAPTER XXVIII. THE A.B. (GENERAL QUALIFICATIONS). The "common sailor"--His one-sided view of things--His difficulties--The reading sailor--Argumentative qualities--His shyness ashore--The religious sailor--Misconceptions of his duties--Hardships of good men from the shipment of duffers--The skilled A.B., some of his duties--The "steamboat sailor"--One instance 253 CHAPTER XXIX. THE A.B. (HIS ROUTINE). Some details fixed--Others varying indefinitely according to the will of the master--The incidence of watches--Difference of work in steamships and sailing vessels--No easy times in American ships--Keeping them "at it"--Wheel and look-out case in point 263 CHAPTER XXX. THE A.B. (HIS POSITION). Putting a premium on incompetency--The steamship partly to blame--Are we getting lazy?--The need for a Naval Reserve? Why does the Reserve languish?--Not a bad life after all--Plenty of British seamen to be got--But they must have discipline 276 CHAPTER XXXI. THE O.S. (ORDINARY SEAMAN). His elimination--No system--Many better than A.B.'s in the same ship--A typical instance--An O.S.'s duties--A piece of technical detail, crossing a royal yard--His position in the fo'c'sle--"A servant of servants shall he be"--A rough-and-ready way out 283 CHAPTER XXXII. THE BOY.