Herein lies the essential difference between second mates in English ships and those in American and Canadian vessels. Here, in the majority of cases, the second mate is a youngster, gentlemanly, well educated, but unpractised. In handling neither ships nor men has he had any extended experience. He is really still at school, and he will often be made to feel the truth of that statement very acutely. But in the Yankee or Blue-nose ship the second mate will be generally found a large man with horny fists and hairy chest, a voice of thunder, and a will of iron. Long and arduous service at sea has raised him no higher than this, for he thinks scornfully of "book-larnin';" but he is a sailor of the very best type. As old seamen are wont to say, "Every hair of his head's a rope-yarn, an' every drop of his blood Stockholm tar." He never has any trouble with his men, for he will probably begin the voyage by knocking a few of them down on the first shadowy appearance of insubordination, which thereafter never dares to show its head. Woe unto the sleepy man who, at the cry of "Lee-fore-brace" in the middle watch, should heave himself slowly up from some comfortable corner, and grunt loud enough to be heard, "---- and ---- the lee-fore-brace, an' the ship'n everybody aboard of her"! But such a thing on board of a Yank or a Blue-nose is unthinkable. In the first place, the unemployed members of the watch on deck would be well in evidence near the break of the poop, marching up and down to keep themselves awake--if, indeed, they were not at work scraping woodwork bright--and on an order being given they would spring, without other remark than a repetition of the order, cheerfully. No; the second mate does not suffer from insubordinate men there.