more than they learn under the Instructor from the talk of the Warrant Officers and men and the carefully-watched mistakes of their elders; and when they reach commissioned rank impart their lore to their successors with a dirk-scabbard.
A REPUBLIC AND A DESPOTISM
If 'White Jacket' had not served before the mast, what a picture he might have given us of the Gun-room! It is at once a Republic and a Despotism—the Extreme Left and the unswerving Centre of old tradition. Individually it is always in hot water; collectively it can and does criticise with point and freedom anything and everything on its horizon, from Fleet Manœuvres to the fit of an Instructor's collar. Pungent, merciless, indomitable is the Gun-room, but it preserves discipline. The senior Sub-Lieutenant (one could not help thinking of O'Brien when he cured Peter of the sea-sickness) stuck a fork into the equivalent for a beam overhead. Ere it ceased vibrating the Midshipmen had gone, flitting like bats; had flung themselves backwards from their seats, and were through the door.
'That's when we think the conversation might hurt their little morals,' said my host. 'But they can move much quicker than that.'
'Make 'em do it again,' said Twenty-One—a Midshipman three years ago. 'You're getting awfully slack, I think. What do you do when———?' he presented a contingency.
'Oh, then we———' The Sub-Lieutenant described the course of action with minute particularity, adding: 'Wouldn't you like to see it done?'
