BOYS ADRIFT.
Boys are generally greatly pleased with seeing ships and the water. In fact, the view of a harbor, filled with boats and shipping, forms usually for all persons, old as well as young, a very attractive scene.
There was once a boy named Antonio Van Tromp. They commonly called him Antony. Sometimes they called him Van Tromp. He lived in a certain sea-port town, where his father used to come in with a ship from sea. His father was captain of the ship. Antonio used to be very fond of going down to the pier while his father’s ship was unloading. One day he persuaded his cousin, who was several years younger than himself, to go down with him.
Antonio and his cousin amuse themselves on the pier.
The boys played about upon the pier for an hour very happily. The seamen and laborers were unloading the ship, and there were a great many boxes, and bales, and hogsheads, and other packages of merchandise lying upon the pier. There were porters at work carrying the goods away, and sailors rolling hogsheads and barrels to and fro. There was an anchor on the pier, and weights, and chains, and trucks, and other similar objects lying around. The boys amused themselves for some time in jumping about upon these things. At length, on looking down over the edge of the pier, they saw that there was a boat there. It was fastened by means of a rope to one of the links of an enormous chain, which was lying over the edge of the pier. On seeing this boat, they conceived the idea of getting into it, and rowing about a little in the neighborhood of the pier.
The boat.
There were no oars in the boat, and so Van Tromp asked a sailor, whom he saw at work near, to go and get them for him on board the ship.
Conversation with the sailor.
“Not I,” said the sailor.
“Why not?” asked Van Tromp.