With all my care, I made a serious mistake in these arrangements; a mistake due to my ignorance of steamship etiquette. I assigned the chief engineer to a place forward with the engine-room crowd, and paid him no further attention. The status of engineers wasn’t in my category; I thought of them, when I thought of them at all, as belonging to some indefinite lower region, and lumped them all together. But I was careful to make the proper distinction with the deck officers, for this was a matter within my own province. Captain Potter gave me a broad hint that afternoon. "My chief engineer is a fine man, sir" he said "There has never been friction between us. He is highly thought of by the office" I received the news as something in the way of conversation; wasn’t much interested just then in the affairs of his vessel. What did I know of steamers? I’d been brought up under sail; and a steamer to me was nothing but a new-fangled usurper of the ocean, a thing to be sneered at, and to be outsailed when possible. It wasn’t till some years afterwards, I remember, that I learned by accident that the chief engineer of a steamer was next in position to her master, above all of the deck officers. The knowledge was a shock to me; I recalled Captain Potter’s remark, realized what I’d done, and saw how nice they had been about it. Even to-day, it annoys me to think of the mistake, and of the comment it must have caused. We lived like kings; I gave free access to the provisions, fore and aft. The first steward of the steamer said "I’ll wait at table" Our forward cabin table, hauled out to its full length, would seat fourteen people; he had to set it up three times for each meal, for all the passengers ate aft. The second steward said "I’ll wash dishes" So he stood all day in the pantry, digging away at an endless job; for of course there weren’t dishes enough to go around three whacks. The cook joined my cook and steward in the galley forward; among them they kept us fed. Made up a barrel of flour into bread every day, for one item. By chance, I overheard the steamer’s first officer say one evening after supper, that her fare at its best hadn’t equalled ours. They were frank in admiration of the ship; of her equipment, her sailing qualities, her cleverness, dryness, and general seaworthiness; I could see that they were a little envious, too, of the way we handled her. We had a crew of Liverpool toughs, hard men, but experienced sailors, bred to American ships and their ways. They had caught the spirit of the game, filled the steamer’s crew full of tall yarns in the dog-watch, and performed feats of seamanship for them on deck whenever the opportunity offered. Once the excitement of that first day was over, old Ridley’s superb knowledge of his position emerged again. My second officer was one of your tall, fiery down-east youths, twenty-one years old, smart as a steel trap and able as a whirlwind.