An inference about Harborough is that it represents a place of adventure and novelty, contrasting with the cautious mentality of the seafaring Captain. This is supported by the narrator's desire to swim in the deep sea—a bold and adventurous wish that reflects a youthful sense of exploration, contrasting sharply with the Captain's lethargy and risk aversion, emphasizing the difference between land-based and sea-based experiences.
Use the passage below to answer the question.
In 1–2 sentences, explain an inference about Harborough based on the details in the passage, and provide at least one piece of strong evidence to support your inference.
The Reward of Enterpise
A project was forming in my mind. I looked at the water. It was a peculiar, vitreous green, closer under the steamer, was transparent to the depth of many feet. Beneath my shoe-soles the poop was hot; over side, the sea looked inexpressibly inviting. And on a sudden I turned to the drowsing Captain and exclaimed: “I want to bathe.”
“To bathe?” The Captain gazed at me.
“Why not?”
The Captain yawned out some lethargic suggestion to the effect that to bathe would be dangerous because of the depth—as though I’d be more apt to drown in three miles of water than in three fathoms.
Seafaring people are odd in that way—I don’t mean in their ignorance of swimming, though, to be sure, the average sailor is seldom a swimmer. They’re so—how shall I express it?—so unenterprising. In the midst of adventure and romance they are stirred by no recognition either of the adventures or the romantic.
I was a city-bred youngster, who had never been out of hail of the homeland before, and I possessed more enterprise in my little finger than that far-travelled Captain had in the whole of his weather-worn, hulking lump of a carcass. I wanted to bathe. I wanted to bathe in the mid-Atlantic. I had learnt to bathe in the public swimming-bath near my old school, and now I wanted to try a swimming-bath three miles deep and tilting continuously at an angle of I don’t know how many degrees. The notion was gorgeous.
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