Books: The Making of a Seaman

NEW CHUM — John Masefield — Moc-millan ($2.50).

In the autumn of 1886 an excited, nervous boy of 13 (who had every inten tion of becoming a first mate and no thought whatever of becoming a poet laureate) stepped into a cutter at the Liverpool docks and was rowed to H.M.S.

Conway, Britain's famed training ship for officers of the merchant fleet. Aboard, he was confronted by a "ruddy, tanned and dirty old hand" who had reached the awe-inspiring age of 1 6. Squirting tobacco juice through his broken teeth and swell ing out "a...

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