aim cultured intercourse from these heroes? Have I not
shared their agony and bloody sweat in times of storm and stress?
Have I not seen this same wearer of elevators in his engine-room,
a blood-stained handkerchief across his head where he has been
"smashed," the sweat running from his blackened features, watching
his engines with an agony no young mother ever knew?

What of the time when our main steam pipe burst in the Irish Sea in a
fog? Read in the Chief Mate's log an entry, "_Delayed 2 hrs. 40 min.,
break-down in engine-room._" Simple, isn't it? But behind those brief
words lies a small hell for the Chief Engineer. Behind them lies two
hours and forty minutes' frenzied toil in the heat of the boiler-tops,
where the arched bunkers keep the air stifling; two hours and forty
minutes' work with tools that race and slither to the rolling of the
ship, with bolts that burn and blister, with steam that knows no
master when she's loose. Literature? Art? Old friend, these gods seem
very impotent sometimes. They seem impotent, as when, for instance, my
first gauge-glass burst. Pacing up and down in front of my engines,
there is a hiss and a roar, and one of my firemen rushes into the
engine-room, his right hand clasping the left shoulder convulsively.
He has been cut to the bone with a piece of the flying glass. Men of
thirty years' sea-time tell me they never have got used to a glass
failing. And then the fight with the water and steam in the darkness,
the frenzied groping for the wires to shut the cocks, the ceaseless
roar of water and steam! A look at the engines, an adjustment of the
feed-valves, lest the water get low while I am fitting a new glass,
and then to work. How glad one is when one sees that luminous ring,
which denotes the water-level, rise "two-thirds glass" once more! And
how far from the fine arts is he whose life is one long succession of
incidents like these? Can they blame us if we look indulgently upon
mere writers and painters? Surely, when the books are opened and the
last log is read, when the overlooker calls our names and reads out
the indictment "_Lacking culture_," we may stand up manfully and
answer as clearly as we can, "Lord, we had our business in great
waters."

XII

In such wise, I imagine, will George the Fourth reply. He is an
admirable foil to the Most Wonderful Man on Earth. He regales you with
no false sentiment; he is five feet ten in his socks, and he is
clamorously indi