It gets him into bad ways and
bad company. Don't you hurry. I have spoken to lots of my mates,
and they're all on the lookout for you. We on the platform can't do
much. It ain't in our line, you see; but in the goods department,
where they are constant with vans and wagons and such like, they
are likely enough to hear of something before long."
That night, thinking matters over in bed, Frank determined to go
down to the docks and see if he could get a place as cabin boy.
He had had this idea in his mind ever since he lost his money, and
had only put it aside in order that he might, if possible, get some
berth on shore which might seem likely in the end to afford him a
means of making his way up again. It was not that he was afraid of
the roughness of a cabin boy's life; it was only because he knew
that it would be so very long before, working his way up from boy
to able bodied seaman, he could obtain a mate's certificate, and
so make a first step up the ladder. However, he thought that even
this would be better than going as a wagoner's boy, and he accordingly
crossed London Bridge, turned down Eastcheap, and presently found
himself in Ratcliff Highway. He was amused here at the nautical
character of the shops, and presently found himself staring into
a window full of foreign birds, for the most part alive in cages,
among which, however, were a few cases of stuffed birds.
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