n PAINT AND VARNISH 83 



a row of laughing girls will be seated, splashing 

 their naked legs in the sea, splashing the boat as 

 well with water and with sand. See-saw is played 

 by rocking a boat from side to side on its keel. 

 Boys will be rowing on dry land, to the great 

 destruction of paddle-blades; or they will be using 

 feather-weight sculls to recover from the sea their 

 toy ships and the boats' ways that they have 

 chucked into the water; or else they will be push- 

 ing and straining to shove off the lightest of 

 the punts. Should they succeed, that boat will 

 earn no money for a few hours. Paint and varnish 

 is scratched with hob-nail boots, sails sat upon, 

 gear trampled over. Rowlocks, lines, footing- 

 sticks, all sorts of things are scattered abroad. 

 What a festival it is! The kids don't care; and, 

 indeed, why should they? Long before they came 

 Into the world the boats were on the beach. They 

 found them there, a resource to be made use of, a 

 means of amusement waiting for them; just as 

 they found the sea and the land, daylight to play 

 In, and darkness to sleep away. Boats which they 

 neither made nor bought are to them simply so 

 much material for enterprise, like goldfields, or 

 fisheries, or untilled soil to men. And if they do 

 damage. . . . Do not we grown-up children 



