ODD CRAFT

By W.W. Jacobs



DIXON'S RETURN

Talking about eddication, said the night-watchman, thoughtfully, the
finest eddication you can give a lad is to send 'im to sea. School is
all right up to a certain p'int, but arter that comes the sea. I've been
there myself and I know wot I'm talking about. All that I am I owe to
'aving been to sea.

[Illustration: "Talking about eddication, said the night-watchman."]

There's a saying that boys will be boys. That's all right till they go
to sea, and then they 'ave to be men, and good men too. They get knocked
about a bit, o' course, but that's all part o' the eddication, and when
they get bigger they pass the eddication they've received on to other
boys smaller than wot they are. Arter I'd been at sea a year I spent all
my fust time ashore going round and looking for boys wot 'ad knocked me
about afore I sailed, and there was only one out o' the whole lot that I
wished I 'adn't found.

Most people, o' course, go to sea as boys or else not at all, but I mind
one chap as was pretty near thirty years old when 'e started. It's a
good many years ago now, and he was landlord of a public-'ouse as used to
stand in Wapping, called the Blue Lion.