One night he stayed on board a coper until a breeze came away; he then
insisted on straddling across the bow of the boat on the return journey,
and he lost his grip for once in his life and went overboard. A dip of
that sort, with heavy sea-boots on, is rather dangerous, and Master Jack
felt as though all the water in the North Sea was dragging at his legs;
but he was hauled in at last. Even that experience only cured him for a
week, and then his resorts to the brandy-bottle began again.
At last, when he was putting fish aboard the carrier, a letter was
handed to him; he looked at it with rough tenderness, and crammed it,
all greasy and gruesome, under his jumper. On getting aboard, he went to
a quiet corner where the men could not tease, and he read,
"Dear John,--I write these few lines hoping you are quite well as this
leaves me at present, but i don't think as you can be well if all is
trew as we hear you are very wild and you ont have no money to come home
if you doant watshe it.
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