I can't larn' ee myself, for the fashion's come up since I was a youngster.
Can you swim, Morgan ?" Morgan could not; and old Isaac said he couldn't see the use of it-- if you capsized, it only lengthened out the trouble.
"Well, then, you must larn yourself," said Mr.Trapp to me.
"I've heard that pigs and men are the only animals it don't come to by nature.

And that's a scandal however you look at it." So strip I did, and was girt with the belt under my armpits, tied to a rope, and slipped over the side in fear and trembling.

I swallowed a pint or two of salt water and wept (but they could not see this, though they watched me curiously), I dare say, half a pint of it back in tears of fright.

I knew by observation how legs and arms should be worked, but made disheartening efforts to put it into practice.
At length, utterly ashamed, I was hauled out and congratulated: at which I stared.
"As for the swimmin'," said Isaac, "I can't call to mind that I've seen worse: but for pluck, considering the number of sharks at about this season, I couldn't ask better of his age." I had not thought of sharks--supposed them, indeed, to inhabit the tropics only.

We caught one towards sunset, after it had fouled all our lines, and smashed its head with the unshipped tiller as it came to the surface.