utenant,
pausing in his stride and tilting his chin in the air, says: "Mr.
----, what sort of helm does she carry?" ----, who had never heard of
weather or lee helms, and probably was not yet recovered from the
effects of the boatswain's seamanship, twisted his eye and his head,
looking more than ever confounded and saucy, and stammered: "I--I--I'm
not sure, sir, but I think it's a wooden one." Tableau!--as the French
say.

In position on board we were midshipmen indeed, in a sense probably
somewhat different from that which first gave birth to the title. We
were not seamen; and it could scarcely be claimed that we were in any
full sense officers, much as we stuck to that designation. We stood
midway. There was a tradition in the British service that a
midshipman, though in training for promotion, did not, while in the
grade, rank with the boatswain or gunner, who had no future prospects,
and who, with the carpenter, stood in a class by themselves. Marryat,
who doubtless drew his characters from life, tells us that the gunner
who sailed with Mr. Midshipman Easy was strong on the necessity for
the gunner mastering navigation, and had many instances in point where
all the officers had been killed down to the gunner, who in such case
would have been sadly handicapped by ignorance of navigation. I fancy
the doubt seldom needed to be settled in service; the duties of
midshipman and boatswain could rarely come into collision, if each
minded his own business. By luck, just after writing these words, I
for the first time in my life have found a plausible derivation for
midshipman.[8] It would appear that in the days immediately after the
flood the vessels were very high at the two ends, between which there
was a deep "waist," giving no ready means of passing from one to the
other. To meet this difficulty there were employed a class of men,
usually young and alert, who from their station were called
midshipmen, to carry messages which were not subject for the trumpet
shout. If this holds water, it, like forecastle, and after-guard, and
knightheads, gives another instance of survival from conditions which
have long ceased.

Whatever the origin of his title, it well expressed the anomalous and
undefined position of the midshipman. He belonged, so to say, to both
ends of the ship, as well as to the middle, and his duties and
privileges alike fell within the broad saying, already quoted, that
what was nobody's business was a mids