you to "do" a brass knob again because you had done it badly the first time, which reminded you to moisten the linen before pressing it, which told you to look sharp and scolded if the soup was cold—a force which was usually reasonable, tolerably kind, irksome of course, but quite understandable at its worst, a force which in no sense meddled with your theories, which made no indecent assaults on your principles, which never obliged you to climb down from the walls of your mental castle to be a mere "dirty rascal." Ideals were hurled at you here, and you took your choice, without coercion; your convictions were scoffed at by burly, good-natured grown-ups, but you were not asked to report to the captain "at three o'clock" and retract them.
True enough, in this world you performed many acts for the sake of what the French master had called esprit de corps. You lent a hand at the main brace, for instance, if you happened to be on deck when the mate was wearing ship—or you ran up to the poop and manipulated the main royal and upper topgallant braces all by yourself. But that sort of co-operation didn't cheapen you in your own estimation, as the j'ai-tu-as-il-a sort most certainly did. On the contrary, lending a hand on deck, humble and brawny co-operation though it was, added a pleasant new sonority to your theme, and certainly did more for your muscles than dipping and lunging in Gym to the tune of "Won't you come home, Bill Bailey?" or "Put me off at Buffalo."
Moreover, in this world you learned plenty of things from the beginning: you learned, for instance, that there was no such thing as the "key of the keelson," and that you had been sent to ask the old man for it merely that a dozen tarry and salty men-babies might split their sides with laughter at your greenness, but you were much more willing to learn useless things of this sort than the useless or pernicious things Miss Mason
