Excerpt from Jack's Courtship, Vol. 1 of 3: A Sailor's Yarn of Love and Shipwreck Why will mammas let their little boys go to sea It is not only that it is the hardest life in the world; when once you are a sailor you are always a sailor, and the calling sticks to you as the rings and bracelets do which are pricked upon your wrists and fingers; so that should you ever happen to fall in love with a girl who does not much care about sailors, but who likes soldiers, and could like you were you a soldier, you are forced in spite of yourself to go on looking like a sailor, though you may have quitted the sea for years, and would enlist to-morrow if the beauty commanded you to do so. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.