After that episode it seemed to dawn upon my mind that it was time to learn something, and I was put as a private pupil with a man whose memory I shall always respect (afterwards Leetham of Thanet House), for he had the great gift of raising his pupil’s enthusiasm for the subject he was teaching. We used to start quite early in the morning, before breakfast, take our time in the middle of the day for recreation, and again tackle the work in the evening. It was in one of the mid-day recreations that, happening to walk down the lower pier, I met my old friend the shipowner. I soon made up my mind that I must go to sea, and realised that here was the instrument by which my desire could be accomplished. A steady siege was at once commenced. My dear old father would not listen to the scheme for a moment; salt water had no charms for him. Yet he himself had taught me the use of mathematical instruments and given me a fair grounding in plan drawing and similar matters. The shrine at which he worshipped, however, was that of Brunel and the great engineers who were then discovering the wonders of applied science. My mother, on the other hand, seeing that my mind was made up, offered no further opposition, and when the time arrived managed to give me the necessary assistance. The scheme finally formulated was this. My friend Mr. Trapp had at that time a vessel in port of which he was part owner, and as she carried apprentices I was to take my place among them on her next voyage, but it was also stipulated that a premium was to be paid. How often, I wonder, have boys been jeered at by the old salts as being “blank gentlemen’s sons that pay to go to sea,” and when one considers in after life the hardships of a sailing-ship, such a custom certainly seems humorous. Well, the appointed day arrived and my mother and I set out for London to carry out the necessary preliminaries. My father had provided funds in a surreptitious sort of manner, for when the die was cast he accepted the situation, though he never really acquiesced in it. Boys are heartless brutes as a rule where their inclinations are concerned, and set little store by the desires of those who have had the trouble of rearing them. But, after all, we none of us are asked whether we would like to come into the world. We are shoved upon the stage willy-nilly without any consideration as to the part we are to play, and expected to give unquestioning obedience to the prompter. This seemed to me unreasonable, and that is how I at length found myself in the London Docks boarding the _Alwynton_, a sailing barque of 491 tons register. To the best of my knowledge she was one of a series of outside vessels chartered by the Orient line, and a stout, staunch craft she was, good looking also in her own way.