e Professor is always charged with a
scholarly reflection, or an apt line from the classics, generally Ovid;
the Surgeon's stories of the amputation-table judiciously serve to
suggest the mortality of the whole party as men; while the good
chaplain stands ready at all times to give them pious counsel and
consolation.

Of course these gentlemen all associate on a footing of perfect social
equality.

Next in order come the Warrant or Forward officers, consisting of the
Boatswain, Gunner, Carpenter, and Sailmaker. Though these worthies
sport long coats and wear the anchor-button; yet, in the estimation of
the Ward-room officers, they are not, technically speaking, rated
gentlemen. The First Lieutenant, Chaplain, or Surgeon, for example,
would never dream of inviting them to dinner, In sea parlance, "they
come in at the hawse holes;" they have hard hands; and the carpenter
and sail-maker practically understand the duties which they are called
upon to superintend. They mess by themselves. Invariably four in
number, they never have need to play whist with a dummy.

In this part of the category now come the "reefers," otherwise
"middies" or midshipmen. These boys are sent to sea, for the purpose of
making commodores; and in order to become commodores, many of them deem
it indispensable forthwith to commence chewing tobacco, drinking brandy
and water, and swearing at the sailors. As they are only placed on
board a sea-going ship to go to school and learn the duty of a
Lieutenant; and until qualified to act as such, have few or no special
functions to attend to; they are little more, while midshipmen, than
supernumeraries on board. Hence, in a crowded frigate, they are so
everlastingly crossing the path of both men and officers, that in the
navy it has become a proverb, that a useless fellow is "_as much in the
way as a reefer_."

In a gale of wind, when all hands are called and the deck swarms with
men, the little "middies" running about distracted and having nothing
particular to do, make it up in vociferous swearing; exploding all
about under foot like torpedoes. Some of them are terrible little boys,
cocking their cups at alarming angles, and looking fierce as young
roosters. They are generally great consumers of Macassar oil and the
Balm of Columbia; they thirst and rage after whiskers; and sometimes,
applying their ointments, lay themselves out in the sun, to promote the
fertility of their chins.

As the only way to