Nevertheless, it is certain that such a training as the mate of a tramp steamer gets is admirably calculated to bring out all a man's sterling qualities: patient persistence in the face of difficulties, ability to deal with refractory races by diplomacy rather than by force, orderly marshalling of thought--absolutely necessary where so many things must be kept going at one time; and, certainly, endurance of hardness. This is no easy way of getting through the world. It makes a man thankful for small mercies; as, for instance, when, after a harassing time, with all the worries of harbour, the mate heaves a sigh of relief upon mounting the bridge to keep watch through four hours of a dark, dirty night. With keen eyes, smarting under the incessant pelting of driving rain and spray, he peers over the edge of the weather-cloth into the blackness ahead, heeding not at all the "bucking beam-sea roll" or the thumpity-thump-thump of the untiring engines below him. Now he can send his thoughts a-roaming. Such tender musings as of love and home and rest may be admitted while the almost invisible blackness of the hull beneath him is thrust into the hungry expanse of darkness ahead, the only sure point being beneath the tiny circle of light in the binnacle. Here we will leave him, steady, resourceful, and alert, not without an affectionate remembrance of all his fellows at their posts on all the seas at this present, worthy members of the worthiest of all commercial enterprises, the Merchant Service. CHAPTER XI. THE MATE'S WORK (IN A SAILING SHIP). There is no small difficulty, I find, in presenting for landward folk the various gradations of officers in the Merchant Service. As far as ability in his profession is concerned, there can be no question at all that the mate of a sailing ship is far before the mate of a steamer; only, the mate of a steamer is so much better paid, as a rule, that he naturally regards his status as much higher than that of the mate of a "wind-jammer." But here enters another complication. It is necessary for the steamer mate to have been a sailing-ship mate first. It has hardly been admitted yet by those in authority that any man is fit for an officer's position in steam until he has served in sail. There alone, they consider, does a man develop the true characteristics of the sailor--his all-round ability for dealing with unforeseen contingencies as they arise, his resourcefulness and skill in dealing with the wise old sea by the aid of the wind.