I adapted myself, but none the less I chafed whenever I heard of manly exploits, and of the delights and dangers that came of seeing the world.

I used to think I could bear anything to cross the seas and see foreign climes.

I did cross the Atlantic at last--a convict in a convict ship (GOD help any man who knows what that is!), and I spent the ten best years of my manhood at the hulks working in chains.

You've never lost freedom, my lad, so you have never felt what it is not to be able to believe you've got it back.
You don't know what it is to turn nervous at the responsibility of being your own master for a whole day, or to wake in a dainty room, with the birds singing at the open window, and to shut your eyes quickly and pray to go on dreaming a bit, because you feel sure you're really in your hammock in the hulks." The school-master lifted his other hand above his head, and pressed both on it, as if he were in pain.

What Charlie was doing I don't know, but I felt so miserable I could not help crying, and had to hunt for my pocket-handkerchief under the table.