Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. (Jerome Klapka) Jerome
page 12 of 241 (04%)
page 12 of 241 (04%)
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Sometimes it was he and the second mate who were not ill; but it was
generally he and one other man. If not he and another man, then it was he by himself. It is a curious fact, but nobody ever is sea-sick - on land. At sea, you come across plenty of people very bad indeed, whole boat-loads of them; but I never met a man yet, on land, who had ever known at all what it was to be sea-sick. Where the thousands upon thousands of bad sailors that swarm in every ship hide themselves when they are on land is a mystery. If most men were like a fellow I saw on the Yarmouth boat one day, I could account for the seeming enigma easily enough. It was just off Southend Pier, I recollect, and he was leaning out through one of the port-holes in a very dangerous position. I went up to him to try and save him. "Hi! come further in," I said, shaking him by the shoulder. "You'll be overboard." "Oh my! I wish I was," was the only answer I could get; and there I had to leave him. Three weeks afterwards, I met him in the coffee-room of a Bath hotel, talking about his voyages, and explaining, with enthusiasm, how he loved the sea. "Good sailor!" he replied in answer to a mild young man's envious query; "well, I did feel a little queer ONCE, I confess. It was off Cape Horn. The vessel was wrecked the next morning." |
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