be better for more water and less grease, but
from whose presence neither husband nor child ever hastens away."

16

[Sidenote: _JIMMY COMES HOOKING_]

The dawns are later now. We do not need to get up quite so early, and
usually, just as we are drinking our cup o' tay, we hear a pattering of
naked feet on the staircase. Jimmy, the Dustman still in his eyes,
appears at the door. He has an air of being about to do something
important. He picks out his stockings and old grey suit from the
corners where they were left to dry. He does not ask to have his boots
laced up nor complain of their stiffness. Then with his coat
exceedingly askew on his shoulders, he demands: "Tay! please."

"What do _yu_ want? Git up over to bed again."

"I be comin' hooking wiv yu."

"Be 'ee? Yu'll hae to hurry up then."

When the sea is not too loppy nor the wind too cold, Jimmy goes with
us. The soft-mouthed mackerel need hauling up clear of the gunwale with
a long-armed swing, beyond Jimmy's power to give, and therefore as a
rule he is not at first allowed to have a line; for fish represent
money and mackerel caught now will be eaten as bread and dripping in
the winter. Jimmy sits huddled up on the lee side for'ard. He becomes
paler, looks plaintively, and sighs a big sigh or two.

"What's the matter, Jim-Jim? Do 'er feel leery?"

If Jimmy volunteers a remark, nothing is the matter. But if he
merely answers "No-o-o!" he means _yes_, and in order to stave off
sea-sickness he must be given a line.

[Sidenote: _EDUCATION EVILS_]

Then is Jimmy 'proper all right.' Then does he brighten up. "How many
have us catched?" he asks. The sight of him fishing in the stern-sheets
re-assures me as to his future, about which I am sometimes fearful,
just as some men are depressed by a helpless baby because they foresee,
imaginatively, the poor little creature's life and all possible
troubles before it. When I watch Jimmy in house, rather naughty
perhaps, or when I hear Bessie, fresh from the twaddle that they put
into her head at school, saying, "If Dad'd earn more money, mother, us
could hae a shop an' he could buy me a pi-anno;" or when, as I am out
and about with the boats, a grubby small hand is suddenly slipped into
mine and a joyful chirping voice says, "What be yu 'bout?"--then, and
at a score of other times, I am fearful of what they may be led to do
with Jimmy; fearful lest they may put the little chap to an inland
trade where he