e, you ain't truthful.'

"So we squared up there and then, and the bung and his men hyked us out
into the street and we was having our scrap out when the police came
up. He ran! 'Eh, Mr Liar!' I yelled after him. 'Did you say you was
never afraid?'

"If I hadn't wasted time doing that, I shouldn't have got caught
either. Very nearly landed me in chokey, that did. We was shipmates
afterwards, me and that man, and very good friends. He's a warrant
officer now."

[Sidenote: _LOWER DECK TO QUARTER-DECK_]

Thence the conversation passed naturally to promotion from the ranks.
"I don't believe in it, not as a general rule," said Luscombe.
"Officers ought to be officers, and men ought to be men, and a ship's
always more comfortable when both keep their places. Rankers as
officers are apt to be bullies: that we all know jolly well. And
besides that, the likes of us can't keep our kecker up the same as
gen'lemen, and therefore I says we ain't fit for the quarter-deck, not
yet awhile. Tisn't that the lower deck ain't so brave as the
quarter-deck, because it is; only it can't keep it up so long; it gets
discouraged like, when 'tis a long job, specially when 'tis one of
those waiting-an-doing-nothing jobs. We ain't bred up to it, and our
fathers wasn't, and there's no good to be got out of trying to pretend
'tisn't so."

We argued on. Luscombe would not yield an inch of his position. I can't
say offhand how far history bears him out, but I fancy that he is right
to this extent: the lower deck has less flexibility of mind. It cannot
view a depressing situation from so many sides at once. It is not, for
instance, so quick to see the underlying humour of an emergency; not so
ready to appreciate the so-called irony of fate. It cannot so easily
turn round and laugh at itself and its predicament. So, though the
lower deck's courage may be fully as great as, or greater than, that
of the upper deck, it is applied more constantly, with less mental
diversion, and therefore it tires sooner. Hence, it _may_ not be
so effective.

The argument undoubtedly has a true bearing on that sort of promotion
which, in the prevailing educational cant, is called giving every poor
boy (by free education, scholarships and other lures) his chance of
climbing to the top of the ladder--as if success in life were one great
tall ladder instead of many ladders of varying builds and heights. In
attempting to justify modern educational policy, its victims are