read the Boat Club; therefore it becomes necessary, before the old
friends of the club are permitted to reunite with them, to introduce
whatever new friends may be waiting to join them in the sports of the
second season at Wood Lake. However wearisome such a presentation may be
to those who are already acquainted, my young friends will all allow
that it is nothing more than civility and good manners.

Frank Sedley is the only son of Captain Sedley, a retired shipmaster, of
lofty and liberal views, and of the most estimable character. He is not
what some people would call an "old fogy," and likes to have the boys
enjoy themselves in everything that is reasonable and proper; but not to
the detriment of their manners or morals, or to the neglect of their
usual duties.

Having been a sailor all his life, he has none of that fear of boats and
deep water which often haunts the minds of fond parents, and has
purchased a beautiful club boat for the use of his son and other boys
who live in the vicinity of Wood Lake.

Some fathers and mothers may think this was a very foolish act on the
part of Captain Sedley, that the amusement he had chosen for his son was
too dangerous in itself, and too likely to create in him a taste for
aquatic pursuits that may one day lead him to be a sailor, which some
tender mothers regard as "a dreadful thing," as, indeed, it is, under
some circumstances.

But it must be remembered that Captain Sedley had been a sailor himself;
that he had followed the seas from early youth; and that he had made his
fortune and earned his reputation as a wise, good, and respectable man,
on the sea. So, of course, he could not sympathize with the general