No it would have happened that way in the books, but didn't
happen that way to Jim. No meddling old clam of a justice dropped in to
make trouble, and so the model boy George got thrashed, and Jim was glad
of it because, you know, Jim hated moral boys. Jim said he was "down on
them milksops." Such was the coarse language of this bad, neglected boy.
But the strangest thing that ever happened to Jim was the time he went
boating on Sunday, and didn't get drowned, and that other time that he
got caught out in the storm when he was fishing on Sunday and didn't get
struck by lightning. Why, you might look, and look, all through the
Sunday-school books from now till next Christmas, and you would never
come across anything like this. Oh, no; you would find that all the bad
boys who go boating on Sunday invariably get drowned; and all the bad
boys who get caught out in storms when they are fishing on Sunday
infallibly get struck by lightning. Boats with bad boys in them always
upset on Sunday, and it always storms when bad boys go fishing on the
Sabbath. How this Jim ever escaped is a mystery to me.
This Jim bore a charmed life--that must have been the way of it.
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