Standing I say, but you could never see whether they were standing or sitting, all but their heads and shoulders being out of sight in the cozy little cabins which occupied some eight feet of the stern, and which Tom Brown pictured to himself as the most desirable of residences.

His nurse told him that those good-natured-looking women were in the constant habit of enticing children into the barges, and taking them up to London and selling them, which Tom wouldn't believe, and which made him resolve as soon as possible to accept the oft-proffered invitation of these sirens to "young master" to come in and have a ride.

But as yet the nurse was too much for Tom.
Yet why should I, after all, abuse the gadabout propensities of my countrymen?
We are a vagabond nation now, that's certain, for better for worse.

I am a vagabond; I have been away from home no less than five distinct times in the last year.

The Queen sets us the example: we are moving on from top to bottom.