After much consultation, it was at last resolved that I should be sent to live, until my constitution got stronger, with a maiden sister of my mother's, who had a house at a watering-place on the south coast.
I left home, I remember, loaded with presents, rejoicing over the prospect of looking at the sea again, as careless of the future and as happy in the present as any boy could be.

Uncle George petitioned for a holiday to take me to the seaside, but he could not be spared from the surgery.

He consoled himself and me by promising to make me a magnificent model of a ship.
I have that model before my eyes now while I write.

It is dusty with age; the paint on it is cracked; the ropes are tangled; the sails are moth-eaten and yellow.

The hull is all out of proportion, and the rig has been smiled at by every nautical friend of mine who has ever looked at it.