Ratty makes three unsuccessful attempts to find fault with the Sea Rats’s life? What are they?

learns that this creature is Sea Rat, who had tried living on a small farm but was now returning to sea after the call got too strong. He explains that he is from Constantinople, but had left there long before in order to explore the world. He loves sailing more than anything else, and invites Rat to join him.

Rat thinks life on the water would be hard:

‘Months and months out of sight of land, and provisions running short, and allowanced as to water, and your mind communing with the mighty ocean, and all that sort of thing?’

Sea rat disagrees saying he is a coastal sea rat. He is seldom far from land and always has access to things on land if he wishes.