rasped it
violently.

"All right!" I shouted, "straight, firm, muscular, supple as ever." I
squeezed harder.

Jack roared. "I say, Bob, gently--"

"Hold your tongue," said I, pinching the thigh. "Do you feel _that_?"

"Ho! ah! _don't_!"

"And that?"

"Stop him! I say, my dear boy, have mercy?" Jack tried to raise
himself, but I tilted him back, and, grasping the limb in both arms,
hugged it.

After breakfast Jack and I retired to my room, where, the weather being
unfavourable for our fishing excursion, I went all over it again in
detail. After that I sent Jack off to amuse himself as he chose, and,
seizing a quire of foolscap, mended a pen, squared my elbows, and began
to write this remarkable account of the reason why I did not become a
sailor.

I now present it to the juvenile public, in the hope that it may prove a
warning to all boys who venture to entertain the notion of running away
from home and going to sea.

STORY THREE, CHAPTER 1.

PAPERS FROM NORWAY.

Norway, 2nd July, 1868.

Happening to be in Norway just now, and believing that young people feel
an interest in the land of the old sea-kings, I send you a short account
of my experiences. Up to this date I verily believe that there is
nothing in the wide world comparable to this island coast of Norway. At
this moment we are steaming through a region which the fairies might
rejoice to inhabit. Indeed, the fact that there are no fairies here
goes far to prove that there are none anywhere. What a thought! No
fairies? Why all the romance of childhood would be swept away at one
fell blow if I were to admit the idea that there are no fairies. Perish
the matter-of-fact thought! Let me rather conclude, that, for some
weighty, though unknown, reason, the fairies have resolved to leave this
island world uninhabited.

Fortune favours me. I have just come on deck, after a two days' voyage
across the German Ocean, to find myself in the midst of innumerable
islands, a dead calm--so dead that it seems impossible that it should
ever come alive again--and scenery so wild, so gorgeous, that one ceases
to wonder where the Vikings of old got their fire, their romance, their
enterprise, and their indomitable pluck. It is warm, too, and
brilliantly sunny.

On gazing at these tall grey rocks, with the bright green patches here
and there, and an occasional red-tiled hut, one almost expects to see a
fleet of daring rovers dash out of a sequest