By the time he is
twenty-four he is a first mate on the coal boats. Comes another vital
change! When he left the shop, he felt all that he had to do to follow
his destiny was to go to sea. Now the star has led him up to a blank
wall. The only promotion he can obtain on these merchantmen is to a
captainship; and the captaincy on a small merchantman will mean pretty
much a monotonous flying back and forward like a shuttle between the
ports of Europe and England.
Cook took a resolution that would have cost any {179} man but one with
absolute singleness of purpose a poignant effort. At the age of
twenty-seven, he decided to enter the Royal Navy. Now, in a democratic
age, we don't talk about such things; but there are unwritten laws and
invisible lines just the same. Standing on the captain's deck of an
American warship not long ago, watching the deck hands below putting
things shipshape, I asked an officer--"Is there any chance for those
men to rise?"
"Yes, some," he answered tentatively, "but then, there is a difference
between the men who have been trained for a position, and those who
have worked up the line to it.
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