The things we do!

Here, for
the sum of twopence, you can go out to sea and pace this vast deck
without need of a steward with a basin. You can watch the sun setting in
splendour over Worthing, or illuminating with its rising glories the ups
and downs of Rottingdean. You see the citizen with his family inveigled
into the shallops of the mercenary native mariner, and fancy that the
motion cannot be pleasant; and how the hirer of the boat, otium et oppidi
laudat rura sui, haply sighs for ease, and prefers Richmond or Hampstead.
You behold a hundred bathing-machines put to sea; and your naughty fancy
depicts the beauties splashing under their white awnings. Along the
rippled sands (stay, are they rippled sands or shingly beach?) the
prawn-boy seeks the delicious material of your breakfast. Breakfast-meal
in London almost unknown, greedily devoured in Brighton! In yon vessels
now nearing the shore the sleepless mariner has ventured forth to seize
the delicate whiting, the greedy and foolish mackerel, and the homely
sole.


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