PREFACE
Reading edition
It is almost superfluous to observe that the following sketches contain no attempt at the portrait of an individual. The majority are etched in with the ink of pure imagination. A few are "composite" sketches of a large number of originals with whom the Author has been shipmates in the past and whose friendship he is grateful to remember.
Of these, some, alas! have finished "the long trick." To them, at no risk of breaking their quiet sleep—Ave atque vale.
"Crab-Pots," "The Day," and "Chummy-Ships" appeared originally in Blackwood's Magazine, and are reproduced here by kind permission of the Editor.