“Oh, yes, he’s not altogether ignorant,” said the vicar. “I think he’s a very fair scholar for his years.”
“Then why dose him any more with book learning, eh? When you fill a water-cask too full it’s apt to run over!”
“I quite agree with you about cramming, Jack,” said the vicar, smiling at the nautical simile; “but, I’m sending Teddy to a leading school more for the sake of the discipline than for anything more that I want him to learn at present.”
“Discipline, eh! is that your reason, brother-in-law? Then allow me to tell you he’ll get more of that at sea than he ever will at school.”
“Oh, father!” interrupted Teddy, who had been present all the time during the confab, listening as gravely as any judge to the discussion about his future, “do let me be a sailor! I’d rather go to sea than anything.”
“But you might be drowned, my boy,” said the vicar gravely, his thoughts wandering to every possible danger of the deep.
“No fear of that,” answered Teddy smiling. “Why, I can swim like a fish; and there’s Uncle Jack now, whom you all thought lost, safe and sound after all his voyages!”
“Aye and so I am!” chorused the individual alluded to.
“Well, well, we’ll think of it,” said the vicar. “I’ll hear what my old friend Jolly has to say to the plan first.”
But he could not have consulted a more favourable authority as far as Teddy was concerned.