My Birth, Parentage, and Family Pretensions—Unfortunately I prove to be a Detrimental or Younger Son, which is remedied by a trifling accident—I hardly receive the first elements of science from my Father, when the elements conspire against me, and I am left an Orphan.

I fulfil the last injunctions of my Father, and I am embarked upon a new element—First bargain in my life very profitable—First parting with old friends very painful—First introduction into civilised life very unsatisfactory to all parties.

I am sent to a Charity School, where the Boys do not consider Charity as a Part of their Education—The Peculiarities of the Master, and the Magical Effect of a Blow of the Nose—A Disquisition upon the Letter A, from which I find all my Previous Learning thrown away.

Sleight-of-hand at the Expense of my Feet—Filling a Man’s Pockets as Great an Offence as picking them, and punished accordingly—A Turn out, a Turn up, and a Turn in—Early Impressions removed, and Redundancy of Feeling corrected by a Spell of the Rattan.

Mr Knapps thinks to catch me napping, but the Plot is discovered, and Barnaby Bracegirdle is obliged to loosen his Braces for the Second Time on my Account—Drawing Caricatures ends in drawing Blood—The Usher is ushered out of the School, and I am nearly ushered into the next World, but instead of being bound on so long a Journey, I am bound “’Prentice to a Waterman.”

I am recommended to learn to swim, and I take a friendly advice—Heavy suspicion on board of the Lighter, and a Mystery, out of which Mrs Radcliffe would have made a romance.

The Mystery becomes more and more interesting, and I determine to find it out.—Prying after things locked up, I am locked up myself.—Fleming proves to me that his advice was good when he recommended me to learn to swim.

One of the ups and downs of Life.—Up before the magistrates, then down the River again in the Lighter.—The Toms.—A light heart upon two sticks.—Receive my first Lesson in singing.—Our Lighter well-manned with two boys and a fraction.

The two Toms take to protocolling—Treaty of Peace ratified between the belligerent parties—Lots of songs and supper—The largest mess of roast meat upon record.

I help to hang my late bargemate for his attempt to drown me—One good turn deserves another—The subject suddenly dropped at Newgate—A yarn in the law line—With due precautions and preparations, the Dominie makes his first voyage—To Gravesend.

Much learning Afloat—Young Tom is very Lively upon the Dead Languages—The Dominie, after experiencing the Wonders of the Mighty Deep, prepares to revel upon Lobscouse—Though the Man of Learning gets Many Songs and some Yarns from Old Tom, he loses the Best Part of a Tale without knowing it.

Is a chapter of tales in a double sense—The Dominie, from the natural effects of his single-heartedness, begins to see double—A new definition of philosophy, with an episode on jealousy.

The “fun grows fast and furious”—The Pedagogue does not scan correctly, and his feet become very unequal—An allegorical compliment almost worked up into a literal quarrel—At length the mighty are laid low, and the Dominie hurts his nose.

Cold water and repentance—the two Toms almost moral, and myself full of wise reflections—The chapter, being full of grave saws, is luckily very short; and though a very sensible one, I would not advise it to be skipped.

I am unshipped for a short time, in order to record shipments and engross invoices—Form a new acquaintance, what is called in the world “A Warm Man,” though he passed the best part of his life among icebergs, and one whole night within the ribs of death—His wife works hard at gentility.

High life above stairs, a little below the mark—Fashion French, Virtue, and all that.

The Tomkinses’ fête champètre and fête dansante—lights among the gooseberry-bushes—all went off well, excepting the lights, they went out—a winding up that had nearly proved a catastrophe—Old Tom proves that danger makes friends by a yarn, Young Tom by a fact.

The art of hard lying made easy, though I am made very uneasy by hard lying—I send my ruler as a missive, to let the parties concerned know that I am a rebel to tyrannical rule—I am arraigned, tried, and condemned without a hearing—What I lose in speech is made up in feeling, the whole wound up with magnanimous resolves, and a little sobbing.

The breach widened—I turn sportsman, poacher, and desperado—Some excellent notions propounded of common law upon common rights—The common keeper uncommonly savage—I warn him off—He prophesies that we shall both come to the gallows—Some men are prophets in their own country—The man right after all.

Our last adventure not fatal—Take to my grog kindly—Grog makes me a very unkind return—Old Tom at his yarns again—How to put your foot in a mischief, without having a hand in it—Candidates for the cat-o’-nine-tails.

On a sick bed—Fever, firmness, and folly—“Bound ’prentice to a waterman”—I take my first lesson in love, and give my first lesson in Latin—The love lesson makes an impression on my auricular organ—Verily, none are so deaf as those who won’t hear.

Is very didactic, and treats learnedly on the various senses, and “human nature;” is also diffuse on the best training to produce a moral philosopher—Indeed, it contains materials with which to build up one system, and half-a-dozen theories, as these things are now made.

A very sensible chapter, having reference to the senses—Stapleton, by keeping his under control, keeps his head above water in his wherry—Forced to fight for his wife, and when he had won her, to fight on to keep her—No great prize, yet it made him a prize-fighter.

The warmth of my gratitude proved by a very cold test—The road to fortune may sometimes lead over a bridge of ice—Mine lay under it—Amor Vincet everything but my obstinacy, which young Tom and the old Dominie in the sequel will prove to their cost.

“The feast of reason and the flow of soul”—Stapleton, on human nature, proves the former; the Dominie, in his melting mood, the latter—Sall’s shoe particularly noted, and the true “reading made easy” of a mind at ease, by Old Tom.

The Dominie’s bosom grows too warm; so the party and the frost break up—I go with the stream and against it; make money both ways—Coolness between Mary and me—No chance of a Thames’ edition of Abelard and Eloise—Love, learning, and Latin all lost in a fit of the sulks.

A good fare—Eat your pudding and hold your tongue—The Dominie crossed in love—The crosser also crossed—I find that “all the world’s a stage,” not excepting the stern sheets of my wherry—Cleopatra’s barge apostrophised on the River Thames.

The pic-nic party—Sufferings by oil, ice, fire, and water—Upon the whole the “divarting vagabonds,” as the Thespian heroes and heroines are classically termed, are very happy, excepting Mr Winterbottom, whose feelings are by sitting down, down to zero.

Mr Turnbull “sets his house in order”—Mrs T thinks such conduct very disorderly—the Captain at his old tricks with his harpoon—He pays his lady’s debts of honour, and gives the applicant a quittance under his own foot—Monsieur and Madame Tagliabue withdraw from the society of “ces Barbares les Anglais.”

Mr Turnbull finds out that money, though a necessary evil, is not a source of happiness—The Dominie finds out that a little calumny is more effectual than Ovid’s remedy for love; and I find out that walking gives one a good appetite for fillet of veal and bacon—I set an example to the clergy in refusing to take money for a seat in church.

Mr Turnbull and I go on a party of pleasure—It turns out to be an adventure, and winds up with a blunderbuss, a tin-box, and a lady’s cloak.

The waterman turns water-knight—I become chivalrous, see a beautiful face, and go with the stream—The adventure seems to promise more law than love, there being papers in the case that is, in a tin-box.

A ten-pound householder occupied with affairs of State—The advantage of the word “implication”—An unexpected meeting and a reconciliation—Resolution versus bright black eyes—Verdict for the defendant, with heavy damages.

How I was revenged upon my enemies—We try the bars of music but find that we are barred out—Being no go, we go back.

The Dominie reads me a sermon out of the largest book I ever fell in with, covering nearly two acres of ground—The pages not very easy to turn over, but the type very convenient to read without spectacles—He leaves off without shutting his book, as parsons usually do at the end of their sermons.

A long story, which ends in the opening of the tin box, which proves to contain deeds much more satisfactory to Mr Wharncliffe than the deeds of his uncle—Begin to feel the blessings of independence, and suspect that I have acted like a fool—After two years’ consideration, I become quite sure of it, and, as Tom says, “No mistake.”

A chapter of losses to all but the reader, though at first Tom works with his wit, and receives the full value of his exertions—We make the very worst bargain we ever made in our lives—We lose our fare, we lose our boat, and we lose our liberty—All loss and no profit—Fair very unfair—Two guineas worth of argument not worth twopence, except on the quarter-deck of a man-of-war.

There are many ups and downs in this world—We find ourselves in the Downs—Our captain comes on board, and gives us a short sermon upon antipathies, which most of us never heard the like of—He sets us all upon the go with his stop watch, and never calls the watch until the watch is satisfied with all hands.

“To be, or not to be,” that is the question—Splinters on board of a man-of-war very different from splinters in the finger on shore—Tom prevents this narrative from being wound up by my going down—I receive a lawyer’s letter, and instead of being annoyed, am delighted with it.

I interrupt a matrimonial duet and capsize the boat—Being upon dry land, no one is drowned—Tom leaves a man-of-war because he don’t like it—I find the profession of a gentleman preferable to that of a waterman.

All the little boys are let loose, and the Dominie is caught—Anxious to supply my teeth, he falls in with other teeth, and Mrs Bately also shows her teeth—Gin outside, gin in, and gin out again, and old woman out also—Dominie in for it again—More like a Whig Ministry than a novel.

In which I take possession of my own house, and think that it looks very ill-furnished without a wife—Tom’s discharge is sent out, but by accident it never reaches him—I take my new station in society.

The Dominie proves Stapleton’s “human natur’” to be correct—The red-coat proves too much of a match for the blue—Mary sells Tom, and Tom sells what is left of him, for a shilling—We never know the value of anything till we have lost it.

I am made very happy—In other respects a very melancholy chapter, which, we are sorry to inform the reader, will be followed up by one still more so.

Read it.

In which, as usual in the last chapter of a work, everything is wound up much to the reader’s satisfaction, and not a little to the author’s, who lays down his pen, exclaiming, “Thank God!”