Classic Audiobook Collection - Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome ~ Full Audiobook [comedy]

Episode Date: October 19, 2022

Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome audiobook. Genre: comedy Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog), published in 1889, is a humorous account by Jerome K. Jerome of a boating holiday on the Thames between Kingston and Oxford. The book was intended initially to be a serious travel guide, with accounts of local history of places along the route, but the humorous elements eventually took over, to the point where the serious and somewhat sentimental passages now seem like an unnecessary distraction to the essentially comic novel. One of the most praised things about Three Men in a Boat is how undated it appears to modern readers. The jokes seem fresh and witty even today. The three men were based on Jerome himself and two real-life friends, George, and Harris. The dog, Montmorency, however, was entirely fictional, but, as Jerome had remarked, 'had much of me in it.' For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 00 (00:01:30) Chapter 01 (00:23:25) Chapter 02 (00:36:11) Chapter 03 (00:55:28) Chapter 04 (01:22:28) Chapter 05 (01:39:05) Chapter 06 (02:03:58) Chapter 07 (02:23:09) Chapter 08 (02:47:13) Chapter 09 (03:07:39) Chapter 10 (03:29:24) Chapter 11 (03:50:26) Chapter 12 (04:14:10) Chapter 13 (04:38:09) Chapter 14 (05:00:10) Chapter 15 (05:27:55) Chapter 16 (05:35:08) Chapter 17 (05:50:26) Chapter 18 (06:04:31) Chapter 19 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Three Men in a Boat, To Say Nothing of the Dog, by Jerome K. Jerome Preface. The chief beauty of this book lies not so much in its literary style, or in the extent and usefulness of the information it conveys, as in its simple truthfulness. Its pages form the record of events that really happened. All that has been done is to color them, and for this no extra charge has been made. George and Harris and Montmorency are not poetic ideals, but things of flesh and blood, especially George who weighs about twelve stone. Other works may excel this in depth of thought and knowledge of human nature.

Other books may rival it in originality and size, but for hopeless and incurable veracity, nothing yet discovered can surpass it. This, more than all its other charms, will it is felt make the volume precious in the eye, of the earnest reader and will lend additional weight to the lesson that the story teaches. London August 1889. End of Preface Chapter 1 of Three Men in a Boat. This is a Libravox recording.

All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Phil Chenevere. Three men in a boat, to say nothing of the dog, by Jerome, K. Jerome. Chapter 1. Three invalids. Sufferings of George and Harris. A victim to 107 fatal maladies. Useful prescriptions. Cure for a liver complaint in children. We agree that we are overworked and need rest. A week on the rolling deep, George suggests the river. Montmoren's sea lodges an objection. Original motion carried by majority of three to one.

There were four of us, George and William Samuel Harris and myself and Montmorency. We were sitting in my room, smoking and talking about how bad we were, bad from a medical point of view, I mean, of course. We were all feeling seedy, and we were getting quite nervous about it. Harris said he felt such extraordinary fits of giddiness come over him at times, that he hardly knew what he was doing. And then George said that he had fits of giddiness, too, and hardly knew what he was doing. With me, it was my liver that was out of order. I knew it was my

liver that was out of order because I had just been reading a patent liver pill circular, in which were detailed the various symptoms by which a man could tell when his liver was out of order. I had them all. It is a most extraordinary thing, but I never read a patent medicine advertisement without being impelled to the conclusion that I am suffering from the particular disease therein dealt with in its most virulent form. The diagnosis seems in every case to correspond exactly with all the sensations that I have ever felt. I remember going to the British Museum one day to read up the treatment for some slight ailment

of which I had a touch. Hay fever. I fancy it was. I got down the book and read all I came to read. read, and then, in an unthinking moment, I idly turned the leaves and began to indolently study diseases generally. I forget which was the first distemper I plunged into, some fearful, devastating scourge I know, and before I had glanced half down the list of premonitory symptoms, it was borne in upon me

that I had fairly got it. I sat for a while, frozen with horror. And then, in the listlessness of despair, I again turned over the pages. I came to typhoid fever, read the symptoms, discovered that I had typhoid fever, must have had it for months without knowing it, wondered what else I had got, turned up St. Vitus's dance, found as I expected that I had that too, began to get interested in my case, and determined to sift it to the bottom, and so started alphabetically, read up, Ague and learned that I was sickening for it, and that the acute stage would commence in about

another fortnight. Bright's disease I was relieved to find, I had only in a modified form, and so far as that was concerned I might live for years. Calora I had, with severe complications, and diphtheria I seemed to have been born with. I plotted conscientiously through the 26th letters, And the only melody I could conclude I had not got was housemaid's knee. I felt rather heard about this at first. It seemed somehow to be a sort of slight. Why hadn't I got housemaid's knee? Why this invidious reservation?

After a while, however, less grasping feelings prevailed. I reflected that I had every other known melody in the pharmacology, and I grew less selfish and determined to do without housemaid's knee. Gout, in its most malignant stage it would appear, had seized me without my being aware of it, and zymosis I had evidently been suffering with from boyhood. There were no more diseases after zymosis, so I concluded there was nothing else to matter with me. I sat and pondered. I thought, what an interesting case I must be from a medical point of view.

What an acquisition I should be to a class. Students would have no need to walk the hospitals if they had me. I was a hospital in myself. All they need do would be to walk around me and after that take their diploma. Then I wondered how long I had to live. I tried to examine myself. I felt my pulse. I could not at first feel any pulse at all.

Then all of a sudden it seemed to start off. I pulled out my watch and timed it. I made it a hundred and forty-seven to the men. minute. I tried to feel my heart. I could not feel my heart. It had stopped beating. I have since been induced to come to the opinion that it must have been there all the time and must have been beating, but I cannot account for it. I patted myself all over my front, from what I call my waist, up to my head, and I went a bit round each side and a little way up the back. But I could not feel nor hear anything. I tried to look at my tongue. I stuck it out as far as ever it would go,

and I shut one eye and tried to examine it with the other. I can only see the tip, and the only thing that I could gain from that was to feel more certain than before that I had scarlet fever. I had walked into that reading room a happy, healthy man. I crawled out a decrepit wreck. I went to my medical man. He is an old chum of mine, and feels my part. I was my part, and he is a pulse and looks at my tongue, and talks about the weather, all for nothing, when I fancy I'm ill, so I thought I would do him a good turn by going to him now. What a doctor wants, I said, is practice. He shall have me.

He will get more practice out of me than out of seventeen hundred of your ordinary commonplace patients with only one or two diseases each. So I went straight up and saw him, and he said, well, what's the matter with you? I said, I will not take up your time, dear boy, with telling you what is the matter with me. Life is brief, and you might pass away before I had finished, but I will tell you what is not the matter with me. I have not got housemaid's knee. Why, I have not got housemaid's knee. I cannot tell you, but the fact remains that I have not got it. Everything else, however, I have got. And I told him how I came to discover it all. Then he opened me and looked down me,

and clutched hold of my wrist, and then he hit me over the chest when I wasn't expecting it, a cowardly thing to do, I call it, and immediately afterwards budded me with the side of his head. After that he sat down and wrote out a prescription, and folded it up, and gave it to me, and I put it in my pocket and went out. I did not open it. I took it to the nearest chemist and handed it in. The man read it, then handed it back. He said he didn't keep it. I said, You are a chemist? He said I am a chemist. If I was a cooperative stores and family hotel combined, I might be able to oblige you.

Being only a chemist hampers me. I read the prescription. It ran. One pound beef steak with one pint bitter beer every six hours. One ten-mile walk every morning. One bed at eleven sharp every night. And don't stuff up your head with things you don't understand. I followed the directions with a happy result, speaking for myself, that my life was preserved

and is still going on. In the present instance, going back to the liver pill circular, I had the symptoms, beyond all mistake, the chief among them being a general disinclination to work of any kind. What I suffer in that way no tongue can tell. From my earliest infancy I have been a martyr to it. As a boy, the disease hardly ever left me for a day. They did not know then that it was my liver. Medical science was in a far less advanced state then than now, and they used to put it down to laziness.

Why you skulking little devil you, they would say, get up and do something for your living, can't you? Not knowing, of course, that I was ill. And they didn't give me pills. They gave me clumps on the side of the head. And strange as it may appear, those clumps on the head often cured me for the time being. I have known one clump on the head have more effect upon my liver and make me feel more anxious to go straight away than in there and do what was wanted to be done without further loss of time than a whole box of pills does now.

You know, it often is so. Those simple, old-fashioned remedies are sometimes more efficacious than all the dispensary stuff. We sat there for half an hour, describing to each other our melodies. I explained to George and William Harris how I felt when I got up in the morning, and William Harris told us how he felt when he went to bed, and George stood on the hearth rug and gave us a clever and powerful piece of acting, illustrative of how he felt in the night. George fancies he is ill, but there is never anything really the matter with him, you know.

At this point, Mrs. Poppitz knocked at the door to know if we were ready for supper. We smiled sadly at one another and said, We supposed we had better try to swallow a bit. Harris said a little something in one's stomach often kept the disease in check, and Mrs. Poppitz brought the tray in, and we drew up to the table and toyed with a little steak and onions and some rhubarb tart. I must have been very weak at the time, because I know, after the first half hour or so, I seemed to take no interest whatever in my food, an unusual

thing for me, and I didn't want any cheese. This duty done, we refilled our glasses, lit our pipes, and resumed the discussion upon our state of health, what it was that was actually the matter with us we none of us could be sure of, but the unanimous opinion was that it, whatever it was, had been brought on by overwork. What we want is a rest, said Harris. Rest and a complete change, said George. The overstrained upon our brains has produced a general depression throughout the system. Change of seeing, an absence of the necessity for thought will restore the mental equilibrium.

George has a cousin, who is usually described in the charge sheet as a medical student, so that he naturally has a somewhat... family physicianary way of putting things. I agreed with George, and suggested that we should seek out some retired and old-world spot, far from the matting crowd, and dream away a sunny week among its drowsy lanes, some half-forgotten nook, hidden away by the fairies, out of reach of the noisy world. Some quaint perched eerie on the cliffs of time, from whence the surging waves of the nineteenth century would sound far,

and faint. Harris said he thought it would be humpy. He said he knew the sort of place I meant where everybody went to bed at eight o'clock and you couldn't get a referee for a love or money and had to walk ten miles to get your backy. No, said Harris, if you want rest and change, you can't beat a sea trip. I objected to the sea trip strongly. A sea trip does you good when you are going to have a couple of months of it, but for a week it is wish. It is weird. You start on Monday with the idea implanted in your bosom that you are going to enjoy yourself. You wave an airy adieu to the boys on shore, light your biggest pipe, and swagger about the deck as if you were Captain Cook, Sir Francis Drake, and Christopher Columbus all rolled into one.

On Tuesday you wished you hadn't come. On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, you wish you were dead. On Saturday you are able to swallow a little beef tea and to sit up on deck and answer with a one sweet smile when kind-hearted people ask you how you feel now. On Sunday you begin to walk about again and take solid food, and on Monday morning, as with your bag and umbrella in your hand you stand by the gunwale waiting to step ashore, you begin to thoroughly like it. I remember my brother-in-law going for a short sea trip once for the benefit of his health. He took a return birth from London to Liverpool, and when he got to Liverpool, the only thing he was anxious about was to sell that return ticket. It was offered round the town at a tremendous reduction, so I am told, and was eventually sold for 18 pence to a bilious-looking youth who had just been advised by his medical men to go to the seaside and take everything. Exercise. Seaside, said my brother-in-law, pressing the ticket affectionately into his hand,

Why, you'll have enough to last you a lifetime, and as for exercise, why you'll get more exercise sitting down on that ship than you would turning somersaults on dry land. He himself, my brother-in-law, came back by train. He said the Northwestern Railway was healthy enough for him. Another fellow I knew went for a week's voyage round the coast, and before they started the steward came to him to ask whether he would pay for each meal as he had it or arranged beforehand for the whole series. The steward recommended the latter course as it would come so much cheaper. He said they would do him for the whole week at two pounds five. He said for breakfast there would be fish followed by a grill, lunch was at one consisted of four courses, dinner at six, soup, fish, entree, joint, poultry, salad, sweets, cheese and dessert, and a light meat supper

at ten. My friend thought he would close on the two-pound-five job. He is a hearty eater, and did so. Lunch came just as they were off sheerness. He didn't feel so hungry as he thought he should, and so contented himself with a bit of boiled beef and some strawberries and cream. He pondered a good deal during the afternoon, and at one time it seemed to him that he had been eating nothing but boiled beef for weeks, and at other times it seemed that he must have been living on strawberries and cream for years. Neither the beef, nor the strawberries and cream, seemed happy either, seemed discontented like. At six they came and told him dinner was ready.

The announcement aroused no enthusiasm within him, but he felt that there was some of that two pound five to be worked off, and he held onto the ropes and things and went down. A pleasant odor of onions and hot ham mingled with fried fish and greens, greeted him at the bottom of the ladder, and then the steward came up with an oily smile and said, What can I get you, sir? Get me out of this, was the feeble reply. And they ran him up quick, and propped him up over to Liebert and left him. For the next four days he lived a simple and blameless life on thin captain's biscuits,

I mean that the biscuits were thin not the captain, and soda water. But towards Saturday he got uppish and went in for a week tea and dry toast, and on Monday he was garging himself on chicken broth. He left the ship on Tuesday, and as it steamed away from the landing stage, he gazed after it regretfully. There she goes, he said. she goes, with two pounds worth of food on board that belongs to me, and I haven't had it. He said that if they had given him another day, he thought he could have put it straight.

So I set my face against the sea trip. Not as I explained upon my own account. I was never queer. But I was afraid for George. George said he should be all right and would rather like it, but he would advise Harris and me not to think of it as he felt sure we should both be ill. Harris said that to himself, it was always a mystery how people managed to get sick at sea. Said he thought people must do it on purpose, from affectation.

Said he had often wished to be, but had never been able. Then he told us anecdotes of how he had gone across the channel when it was so rough that the passengers had to be tied into their berths, and he and the captain were the only two living souls on board who were not ill. Sometimes it was he and the second mate who were not ill, but generally he and one other man. If not he and another man, then it was he by himself. It is a curious fact, but nobody ever is seasick on land. At sea you come across plenty of people very bad indeed, whole boatloads of them,

but I never met a man yet on land, who had ever thought at all what it was to be seasick. where the thousands upon thousands of bad sailors that swarm in every ship hide themselves when they are on land is a mystery. If most men were like the fellow I saw on the Yarmouth boat one day, I could account for the seeming enigma easily enough. It was just off South End Pier, I recollect, and he was leaning out through one of the portholes in a very dangerous position. I went up to him to try and save him. "'Hi, come further in,' I said, shaking him by the shoulder, "'you'll be overboard.' "'Oh, my, I wish I was!' was the only answer I could get.

And there I had to leave him. Three weeks afterwards, I met him in the coffee room of a bath hotel, talking about his voyages, and explaining with enthusiasm how he loved the scene. "'Good sailor,' he replied, in answer to a mild young man's envious query, Well, I did feel a little queer once, I confess. It was off Cape Horn. The vessel was wrecked that morning. I said, weren't you a little shaky by South End Pier one day and wanted to be thrown overboard?

South End Pier, he replied, with a puzzled expression. Yes, going down to your mouth, last Friday three weeks. Oh, ah yes, he answered, brightening up. I remember now. I did have a headache that afternoon. It was the pickles, you know. they are the most disgraceful pickles i ever tasted in a respectable boat did you have any for myself i have discovered an excellent preventative against sea-sickness in balancing myself you stand in the center of the deck and as the ship heaves and pitches you move your body about so as to keep it all ways straight when the front of the ship rises you lean forward till the deck almost touches your nose and when its back end gets up

you lean backwards. This is all very well for an hour or two, but you can't balance yourself for a week. George said, let's go up the river. He said we should have fresh air, exercise, and quiet. The constant change of scene would occupy our minds, including what there was of Harris's, and the hard work would give us a good appetite and make us sleep well. Harris said he didn't think George ought to do anything that would have a tendency to make him sleepier than he already was, as it might be dangerous. He said he didn't very well understand how George was going to sleep any more than he did now, seeing that there were only 24 hours in each day, summer and winter alike, but thought that if he did sleep anymore, he might just as

well be dead, and so save his board and lodging. Harris said, however, that the river would suit him to a T. I don't know what a T is, except a six-penny one, which includes. bread and butter and cake odd lib and is cheap at the price if you haven't had any dinner it seems to suit everybody however which is greatly to its credit it suited me to a T too and Harris and I both said it was a good idea of George's and we set it in a tone that seemed to somehow imply that we were surprised that George should have come out so sensible the only one who was not struck with the suggestion was Montmorency he never did care for the river, did Montmorency.

It is all very well for you, fellows, he says. You like it, but I don't. There's nothing for me to do. Seenery is not in my line, and I don't smoke. If I see a rat, you won't stop. And if I go to sleep, you'll get fooling around with the boat and slop me overboard. If you ask me, I call the whole thing Bally Foolishness. We were three to one, however, and the motion was carried.

End of Chapter 1 Chapter 2 of 3 Men in a Boat This is a Libravox recording All Libravox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer Please visit Libravox.org Recording by Caroline Driggs Three Men in a Boat to Say Nothing of the Dog

By Jerome K. Jerome Chapter 2 Plans discussed Pleasures of camping out on fine nights ditto wet nights, compromise decided on. Montmorency, first impressions of, fears lest he is too good for this world, fears subsequently dismissed as groundless, meeting adjourns. We pulled out the maps and discussed plans. We arranged to start on the following Saturday from Kingston. Harrison and I would go down in the morning and take the boat up to Chertsey, and George, who would not be able to get away from the city till the afternoon. George goes to sleep at a bank.

from 10 to 4 each day except Saturdays when they wake him up and put him outside at 2 would meet us there. Should we camp out or sleep at inns? George and I were for camping out. We said it would be so wild and free, so patriarchal-like. Slowly the golden memory of the dead sun fades from the hearts of the cold, sad clouds. Silent like sorrowing children, the birds have ceased their song, and only the Moorhens' plaintive cry and the harsh croak of the corncrake stirs the awed hush around the couch of waters, where the dying day breathes out her last. From the dim woods on either bank, night's ghostly army, the grey shadows, creep out with noiseless tread to chase away the lingering rearguard of the light, and pass with noiseless unseen feet above the waving river grass

and through the sighing rushes and night upon her sombre throne folds her black wings above the darkening world and from her phantom palace lit by the pale stars rains in stillness. Then we run our little boat into some quiet nook and the tent is pitched and the frugal supper cooked and eaten.

Then the big pipes are filled and lighted and the pleasant chat goes round in musical undertone. While in the pauses of our talk, the river, playing round the boat, prattles strange old tales and secrets, sings low the old child's song that it has sung so many thousand years, will sing so many thousand years to come before its voice grows harsh and old, a song that we who have learnt to love its changing face, who have so often nestled on its yielding bosom,

think somehow we understand. though we could not tell you in mere words the story that we listen to. And we sit there by its margin while the moon, who loves it too, stoops down to kiss it with a sister's kiss, and throws her silver arms around it clingingly. And we watch it as it flows, ever singing, ever whispering, out to meet its king, the sea, till our voices die away in silence, and the pipes go out,

till we, commonplace, every day young men enough, feel strangely full of thoughts, half sad, half sweet, and do not care or want to speak, till we laugh and rising knock the ashes from our burnt-out pipes and say good-night, and lulled by the laughing water and the rustling trees, we fall asleep beneath the great still stars, and dream that the world is young again,

young and sweet as she used to be, ere the centuries of fret and care had furrowed her fair face, ere her children's sins and follies had made old her loving heart. Sweet as she was in those bygone days when a new-made mother she nursed us, her children, upon her own deep breast. Ere the wiles of painted civilisation had lured us away from her fond arms, and the poisoned sneers of artificiality had made us ashamed of the simple life we led with her, and the simple stately home where mankind was born so many thousand years ago. Harris said, How about when it rained? You can never rouse Harris. There is no poetry about Harris,

no wild yearning for the unattainable. Harris never weeps, he knows not why. If Harris' eyes fill with tears, you can bet it's because Harris has been eating raw onions or has put too much Worcester over his chop. If you were to stand at night by the seashore with Harris and say, Hark, do you not hear,

is it but the mermaids singing deep below the wavy waters or sad spirits chanting dirges for white corpses held by seaweed. Harris would take you by the arm and say, I know what it is, old man. You've got to chill. Now, you come along with me. I know a place round the corner here where you can get a drop of the finest scotch whiskey you ever tasted. Put you right in less than no time. Harris always does know a place around the corner where you can get something brilliant in the drinking line. I believe that if you met Harris up in paradise, supposing such a thing likely, he would immediately greet you with, so glad you've come, old fellow, I've found a nice place round the corner here where you can get some really first-class

nectar. In the present instance, however, as regarded the camping out, his practical view of the matter came as a very timely hint. Camping out in rainy weather is not pleasant. It is evening, you are wet through, and there is a good two inches of water in the boat, and all the things are damp. You find a place on the banks that is not quite so puddly as other places you have seen, and you land and lug out the tent, and two of you proceed to fix it. It is soaked and heavy, and it flops about and tumbles down on you, and clings round your head and makes you mad. The rain is pouring steadily down all the time. It is difficult enough to fix a tent in dry weather. In wet, the task becomes Herculane. Instead of helping you, it seems to you that the other man is simply

playing the fool. Just as you get your side beautifully fixed, he gives it a hoist from his end and spoils it all. Here, what are you up to, you call out? What are you up to, he retorts. Let go, can't you? Don't pull it? You've got it all wrong, you stupid ass, you shout. No, I haven't, he yells back. Let go your side. I tell you, you've got it all wrong, you roar, wishing that you could get at him, and you give your ropes a lug that pulls all. his pegs out. Oh, the belly idiot, you hear him mutter to himself, and then comes a savage hall and away goes your side. You lay down the mallet and start to go round and tell him what you think about the whole business, and at the same time he starts round in the same direction

to come and explain his views to you. And you follow each other round and round, swearing at one another, until the tent tumbles down in a heap, and leaves you looking at each other across its ruins, when you both indignantly exclaim in the same breath, there you are, what did I tell you? Meanwhile, the third man who has been bailing out the boat, and who has spilled the water down his sleeve, and has been cursing away to himself steadily for the last ten minutes, wants to know what the thundering blazers you're playing at and why the blanc tent isn't up yet. At last, somehow or other, it does get up, and you land the things. It is hopeless attempting to make a wood fire, so you light the methylated spirits

stove and crowd round there. Rainwater is the chief article of diet at supper. The bread is two-thirds rainwater. The beefsteak pie is exceedingly rich in it, and the jam and the butter and the salt and the coffee have all combined with it to make soup. After supper, you find your tobacco is damp and you cannot smoke. Luckily, you have a bottle of the stuff that cheers and inebriates, if taken in proper quantity, and this restores to you sufficient interest in life to induce you to go to bed. There you dream that an elephant has suddenly sat down on your chest and that the volcano has exploded and thrown you down to the bottom of the sea, the elephant still sleeping peacefully on your bosom. You wake up and grasp the idea that something terrible really has happened.

Your first impression is that the end of the world has come, and then you think, this cannot be, and that it is thieves and murderers, or else fire, and this opinion you express in the usual method. No help comes, however, and all you know is that thousands of people are kicking you and you're being smothered. Somebody else seems in trouble, too. You can hear his faint cries coming from underneath your bed. Determining at all events to sell your life dearly, you struggle frantically, hitting out right and left with arms and legs and yelling lustily the while, and at last something gives away, and you find your head in the fresh air. two feet off you dimly observe a half-dressed ruffian waiting to kill you and you're preparing for a life and death struggle with him when it begins to dawn upon you that it's jim oh it's you is it he says recognizing you at the same moment yes you answer rubbing your eyes what's happened the belly tents blown down i think he says where's bill then you both raise up your voices and shout for bill and the ground beneath you heaves and roeves and rock and the muffled voice that you heard before replies from out the ruin,

get off my head, can't you? And Bill struggles out, a muddy, trampled wreck, and in an unnecessarily aggressive mood, he being under the evident belief that the whole thing has been done on purpose. In the morning you are all three speechless, owing to having caught severe colds in the night. You also feel very quarrelsome, and you swear at each other in hoarse whispers during the whole of breakfast time. We therefore decided that we would sleep out on fine nights and hotel it and in it and pubbit, like respectable folks, when it was wet or when we felt inclined for a change.

Montmorency hailed this compromise with much approval. He does not revel in romantic solitude. Give him something noisy, and if a trifle low, so much the jollier. To look at Montmorency, you would imagine that he was an angel sent upon the earth, for some reason withheld from mankind. in the shape of a small fox terrier. There is a sort of, oh, what a wicked world this is and how I wish I could do something to make it better and nobler expression about Montmorency,

that has been known to bring the tears into the eyes of pious old ladies and gentlemen. When he first came to live at my expense, I never thought I should be able to get him to stop long. I used to sit down and look at him as he sat on the rug and looked up at me and think, oh, that dog will never live. he will be snatched up to the bright skies in a chariot. That is what will happen to him. But when I had paid for about a dozen chickens that he had killed,

and had dragged him growling and kicking by the scruff of his neck out of 114 street fights, and had had a dead cat brought round from my inspection by an irate female who called me a murderer, and had been summoned by the man next door but one for having a ferocious dog at large that had kept him pinned up in his own toolshed, afraid to venture his nose outside the door for over two hours on a cold night, and had learned that the gardener, unknown to myself, had won 30 shillings by backing him to kill rats against time, then I began to think that maybe they'd let him remain on earth for a bit longer after all.

To hang about a stable and collect a gang of the most disreputable dogs to be found in the town and lead them out to march round the slums to fight other disreputable dogs is Montmorency's idea of life. And so, as I before observed, he gave to the suggestion of inns and pubs and hotels his most emphatic approbation. Having thus settled the sleeping arrangements to the satisfaction of all four of us,

the only thing left to discuss was what we should take with us. And this we had begun to argue, when Harris said he'd have enough oratory for one night, and proposed that we should go out and have a smile, saying that he had found a place round by the school, where you could really get a drop of Irish worth drinking. George said he felt thirsty. I never knew George when he didn't.

And as I had a pre-sentiment that a little whiskey, warm with a slice of lemon, would do my complaint good. The debate was by common assent adjourned to the following night, and the assembly put on its hats and went out. End of Chapter 2. Chapter 3 of 3 men in a boat? This is a Librevox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain.

information or to volunteer please visit librivox dot org three men in a boat to say nothing of the dog by jerome k jerome chapter three arrangements settled harris's method of doing work how the elderly family man puts up a picture george makes a sensible remark delights of early morning bathing provisions for getting upset so on the following evening we again assembled to discuss and arrange our plans. Harris said, Now, the first thing to settle is what to take with us. Now, you get a bit of paper and write down, Jay, and you get the grocery catalogue, George. And somebody give me a bit of pencil, and then I'll make out a list.

That's Harris all over, so ready to take the burden of everything himself, and put it on the backs of other people. He always reminds me of my poor Uncle Podger. You never saw such a commotion up and down a house in all your life, as when my Uncle Podger undertook to do a job. A picture would have come home from the framakers and be standing in the dining-room, waiting to be put up. And Aunt Podger would ask what was to be done with it?

An Uncle Podger would say, Oh, you leave that to me. Don't you any of you worry yourselves about that? I'll do all that. And then he would take off his coat and begin. He would send the girl out for sixpenny worth of nails, and then one of the boys after her to tell her what size to get. And from that, he would gradually work down and start the whole house.

Now, you go and get me my hammer, Will, and you bring me the rules. Tom, and I shall want the step-ladder, and I had better have a kitchen share, too, and Jim, you run round to Mr. Goggles and tell him, Pa's kind regards and hopes his legs better, and will he lend me his spirit-level? And don't you go, Maria, because I shall want somebody to hold me the light, and when the girl comes back, she must go out again for a bit of picture-cord, and Tom, where's Tom? "'Tom, come here, I shall want you to hand me up the picture.' And then he would lift up the picture and drop it, and it would come out of the frame,

and he would try to save the glass and cut himself. And then he would spring round the room looking for his handkerchief. He could not find his handkerchief, because it was in the pocket of the coat he had just taken off, and he did not know where he had put the coat, and all the house had to leave off looking for his tools, and start looking for his coat, while he would dance round and hinder them.

Doesn't anybody in the whole house know where my coat is? I never came across such a set in all my life upon. My word, I didn't. Six of you, and you can't find a coat that I put down not five minutes ago. Well, of all the— Then he would get up and find that he had been sitting on it, and would call out, Oh, you can give it up.

i've found it myself now might just as well have asked the cat to find anything as expect you people to find it and when half an hour had been spent in tying up his finger and a new glass had been got and the tools and the ladder and the chair and the candle had been brought he would have another go the whole family including the girl and the child-woman standing round in a semicircle ready to help two people would have to hold the chair and a third would help him up on it and hold him there and a fourth would hand him a nail and a fifth would pass him up the hammer and he would take hold of the nail and drop it there he would say in an injured tone now the nail's gone and we would all have to go down on our knees and grovel for it while he would stand on the chair and grunt and want to know if he was to be kept there all the evening the nail would be found at last but by that time he would have lost the hammer where's the hammer what did i do with the hammer great heavens seven of you gaping round there and you don't know what i did with the hammer we would find the hammer for him and then he would have lost sight of the mark he had made on the wall where the nail was to go in and each of us had to get up on the chair beside him and see if we could find it and we would all discover it in a different place and he would call us all fools one after another and tell us to get down and he would take the rule and remeasure and find that he wanted half thirty-one and three eighths in

from the corner and would try to do it in his head and go mad and we would all try to do it in our heads and all arrive at different results and sneer at each other and in the general row the original number would be forgotten and uncle podger would have to measure it again he would use a bit of string this time and at the critical moment when the old fool was leaning over the chair at an angle of forty-five and trying to reach a point three inches beyond what was possible for him to reach, the string would slip, and down he would slide onto the piano, a really fine musical effect being produced by the suddenness, with which his head and body struck the notes all at the same time. And Aunt Maria would say that she would not allow the children to stand round and hear such language. At last, Uncle Podgea would get the spot fixed again.

and put the point of the nail on it with his left hand and take the hammer in his right hand and with the first blow he would smash his thumb and drop the hammer with a yell on somebody else's toes aunt maria would mildly observe that next time uncle podger was going to hammer a nail into the wall she hoped he'd let her know in time so that she could make arrangements to go and spend a week with her mother while it was all being done. Oh, you women, you make such a fuss over everything, Uncle Podger would reply, picking himself up, why, I like doing a little job of this sort. And then he would have another try, and at the second blow the nail would go clean through the plaster

and half the hammer after it, and Uncle Podger be precipitated against the wall with force nearly sufficient to flatten his nose. Then we had to find the rule and the string again, and a new hole was made, and about midnight the picture would be up, very crooked and insecure, the wall for yards round,

looking as if it had been smoothed down with a rake. And everybody deadbeat and wretched, "'exect Uncle Podger.' "'There you are,' he would say, stepping heavily off the chair onto the charwoman's corns, and surveying the mess he had made with evident pride. "'Why, some people would have had a man in to do a little thing like that. "'Harris will be just that sort of man when he grows up, I know, and I told him so.

"'I said I could not permit him to take so much labour upon himself.' I said, no, you get the paper and the pencil, and the catalogue, and George, write down, and I'll do the work. The first list we made out had to be discarded. It was clear that the upper reaches of the Thames would not allow for the navigation of a boat sufficiently large, to take the things we had set down as indispensable. So we tore the list up and looked at one another. George said, You know, we are really on a wrong track altogether.

We must not think of the things we could do with, but only of the things that we can't do without. George comes out really quite sensible at times. He'd be surprised. I call that downright wisdom, not merely as regards to the present case, but with reference to our trip up the river of life generally. How many people on that voyage load up the boat, till it is ever in danger of swamping with a store of foolish things which they think essential to the pleasure and comfort of the trip, but which are really only useless lumber?

How they pile the poor little craft mast high with fine clothes and big houses, with useless servants, and a host of swell friends that do not care tuppence for them, and that they do not care toppence for them, and that they do not care of, three hapence for, with expensive entertainments that nobody enjoys, with formalities and fashions, with pretence and ostentation, and with, oh, heaviest, maddest lumberable, the dread of what will my neighbours think, with luxuries that only cloy, with pleasures that bore, with empty show that, like the criminal's iron crown of yore, makes to bleed and to swoon the aching head that wears it. It is lumber, man, all lumber. Throw it overboard.

It makes the boat so heavy to pull, you nearly faint at the oars. It makes it so cumbersome and dangerous to manage, you never know a moment's freedom from anxiety and care. Never gain a moment's rest for dreamy laziness. No time to watch the windy shadow skimming, lights, or the shallows, all the glittering sunbeams flitting in and out among the ripples, all the great trees by the margin looking down at their own image, or the woods, all green and golden,

all the lilies, white and yellow, or the sombre waving rushes, or the sedges, or the orkis or the blue forget-me-nots throw the lumber over man let your boat of life be light packed with only what you need a homely home and simple pleasures one or two friends worth the name someone to love and someone to love you a cat a dog and a pipe or two enough to eat and to wear and a little more than enough to drink for thirst is a dangerous thing you will find the boat easy to pull then and it will not be so liable to upset and it will not matter so much if it does upset good plain merchandise will stand water you will have time to think as well as to work time to drink in life's sunshine time to listen to the hourly in music that the wind of god draws from the human heart-strings around around us. Time to... I beg your pardon, really. I quite forgot. Well, we left the list to George, and he began it. We won't take a tent, suggested George. We will have a boat with a cover. It is ever so much simpler and more comfortable. It seemed a good thought, and we adopted it.

I do not know whether you have ever seen the thing I mean. you fix iron hoops up over the boat and stretch a huge canvas over them and fasten it down all round from stem to stern and it converts the boat into a sort of little house and it is beautifully cosy so a trifle stuffy but there everything has its drawbacks as the man said when his mother-in-law died and they came down upon him for the funeral expenses george said that in that case we must take a rug each a lamp some soap a brush and comb between us a tooth-brush each a basin some tooth-powder some shaving tackle sounds like a french exercise doesn't it and a couple of big towels for bathing i always notice that people always make giant arrangements for bathing when they are going anywhere near the water but that they don't bathe much when they are there it is the same when you go to the seaside i always determine when thinking over the matter in london that i'll get up early every morning and go and have a dip before breakfast and i religiously pack up a pair of drawers and a bath-tow i always get red bathing drawers i rather fancy myself in red drawers they suit my complexions so but when i get to the sea i don't feel somehow that i want that early morning bathe nearly so much as i did when i was in town

on the contrary i feel more that i want to stop in bed till the last moment and then come down and have my breakfast once or twice virtue has triumphed and that i've got out at six and half dressed myself and have taken my drawers and towel and stumbled dismally off but i haven't enjoyed it they seem to keep a specifically east wind waiting for me when i go to bathe in the early morning and they pick out all the three cornered stones and put them on the top and they sharpen up the rocks and cover the points over with a bit of sand so i can't see them and they take the sea and put it two miles out so that i have to huddle myself up in my arms and hop shivering through six inches of water and when i do get to the sea it is rough and quite insulting one huge wave catches me up and chucks me in a sitting posture as hard as ever it can down on to a rock which has been put there for me and before i've said ugh ah and found out what has gone the wave comes back and carries me out to mid-ocean i begin to strike out frantically for the shore and wonder if i shall ever see home and friends again and wish i'd been kinder to my little sister when a boy when i was a boy i mean just when i have given up all hope a wave retires and leaves me sprawling like a starfish on the sand and i get up and look back and find that i've been swimming for my life in two feet of water

i hop back and dress and crawl home where i have to pretend i liked it in the present instance we all talked as if we were going to have a long swim every morning george said it was so pleasant to wake up in the boat in the fresh morning and plunge into the limpid river harris said there was nothing like a swim before breakfast to give you an appetite he said it always gave him an appetite george said that if it was going to make harris eat more than he ordinarily ate then he should protest against harris having a bath at all he said there would be quite enough work in towing sufficient food for harris up against stream as it was i urged upon george however how much pleasanter it would be to have harris clean and fresh about the boat even if we did have to take a few more hundred weight of provisions and he got to see it in my light and withdrew his position to harry's his bath agreed finally that we should take three bath towels so as not to keep each other waiting for clothes george said two suits of flannel would be sufficient as we could wash them ourselves in the river when they got dirty we asked him if he had ever tried washing flannels in the river and he replied no not exactly himself like but he knew some fellows who had and he had and it was easy enough and harris and i were weak enough to fancy he knew what he was talking about and that three respectable young men without position or influence and with no experience in washing could really clean their own shirts and trousers in the river thames with a bit of soap

we were to learn in the days to come when it was too late that george was a miserable impostor who could evidently have known nothing whatever about the matter if you had seen these clothes after but as the shilling shockers say we anticipate george impressed upon us to take a change of under things and plenty of socks in case we got upset and and wanted a change also plenty of handkerchiefs as these would do to wipe things and a pair of leather boots as well as our boating shoes as we should want them if we got upset end of chapter three chapter four of three men in a boat this is a librivox recording all libervox recordings for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox dot org three men in a boat to say nothing of the dog by jerome k jerome chapter four the food question objections to power of ven oil as an atmosphere advantages of cheese as a travelling companion a married woman deserts her husband further provisions for getting upset eye pack cursedness of tooth-brushes george and harris pack awful behaviour of Montmorency. We retire to rest. Then we discussed the food question. George said, begin with breakfast. George is so practical. Now for breakfast, we shall want a frying pan.

Harris said it was indigestible, but we merely urged him not to be an ass. And George went on. "'A teapot and a kettle and a methylated spirit stove. "'No oil,' said George, with a significant look. "'And Harris and I agreed. "'We had taken up an oil stove once before. "'But never again. "'It had been like living in an oil shop that week. "'It oozed.

"'I never saw such a thing as paraffin oil is to ooze. we kept it in the nose of the boat and from there it oozed down to the rudder impregnating the whole boat and everything in it on its way and it oozed over the river and saturated the scenery and spoilt the atmosphere sometimes a westerly oily wind blew and at other times an easterly oily wind and sometimes it blew a northerly oily wind and maybe a southerly oily wind, but whether it came from the Arctic snows or was raised in the waste of the desert sand, it came alike to us, laden with the fragrance of paraffin oil. And that oil oozed up and ruined the sunset, and as for the moonbeams they positively reeked of paraffin. We tried to get away from it at Marlowe. We left the boat by the bridge and took a walk to escape it. it followed us. The whole town was full of oil. We passed through the churchyard, and it seemed as if the people had been buried in oil. The high street stunk of oil. We wondered how people could live in it. And we walked miles upon miles out Birmingham way, but it was no use. The country was steeped in oil. At the end of that trip, we met together at midnight in a lonely, field, under a blasted oak, and took an awful oath.

We had been swearing for a whole week about the thing in an ordinary middle class way, but this was a swell affair, an awful oath never to take paraffin oil with us in a boat again, except, of course, in the case of sickness. Therefore, in the present instance, we can find ourselves to methylated spirit. Even this is bad enough. You get methylated pie and methylated cake. But methylated spirit is more wholesome when taken into the system in large quantities than paraffin oil. For other breakfast things, George suggested eggs and bacon, which were easy to cook.

Cold meat, tea, bread and butter and jam. For lunch, he said we could have biscuits, cold meat, bread and butter, and jam, but no cheese. Cheese, like oil, makes too much of itself. It wants the whole boat to itself. It goes through the hamper and gives the cheesy flavour to everything else there. You can't tell whether you are eating apple pie, German sausage, or strawberries and cream. It all seems cheese.

There is too much odour about cheese. i remember a friend of mine buying a couple of cheeses at liverpool splendid cheeses they were ripe and mellow with a two hundred horse-power sent about them that might have been warranted to carry three miles and knock a man over at two hundred yards i was in liverpool at the time and my friend said that if i didn't mind he would get me to take them back with me to london as he should not be coming up for a day or two himself and he did not think the cheeses ought to be kept much longer oh with pleasure dear boy i replied with pleasure i called for the cheeses and took them away in a cab it was a ramshackle affair dragged along by a not-need broken-winded sinambulist which his owner in a moment of enthusiasm during conversation referred to as a horse i put the cheeses on the top and we started off at a shamble that would have done credit to the swiftest steam-roller ever built and all went merrily as a funeral bell until we turned the corner there the wind carried a whiff from the cheeses full on to our steed he woke him up and with a snort of terror he dashed off at three miles an hour the wind still blew in his direction and from behind we reached the end of the street he was laying himself out at the rate of nearly four miles an hour leaving the cripples and stout old lady simply nowhere it took two porters as well as the driver to hold him in at the station

and i do not think they would have done it if even then had not one of the men had the presence of mind to put a handkerchief over his nose and to light a bit of brown paper i took my ticket and marched proudly up the platform with my cheeses the people falling back respectively on either side the train was crowded and i had to get into a carriage where there were already seven other people one crusty old gentleman objected but i got in notwithstanding and putting my cheeses upon the rack squeezed down with a pleasant smile and said it was a warm day a few moments passed and then the old gentleman began to fidget very close in here he said quite oppressive said the man next to him and then they both began sniffing and at the third sniff they caught it right on the chest and rose up without another word and went out and then a stout lady got up and said it was disgraceful that a respectable married woman should be harried about in this way and gathered up a bag and eight parasols and went the remaining four passengers sat on for a while, until a solemn-looking man in the corner, who, from his dress and general appearance,

seemed to belong to the undertaker class and said it put him in mind of dead baby, and the other three passengers tried to get out of the door at the same time and hurt themselves. I smiled at the black gentleman, and said, I thought we were going to have the carriage to ourselves. And he laughed pleasantly and said that some people made such a fuss over a little thing.

But even he grew strangely depressed after we had started. And so, when we reached crew, I asked him to come and have a drink. He accepted, and we forced our way into the buffet, where we yelled and stamped and waved our umbrellas for a quarter of an hour, and then a young lady came and asked him. if we wanted anything what's yours i asked turning to my friend i'll have half a crown's worth of brandy neat if you please miss he responded and he went off quietly after he had drunk it and got into another carriage which i thought mean from crew i had the compartment to myself though the train was crowded as we drew up at the different stations the people seeing my empty carriage, would rush for it.

Here you are. Maria, come along. Plenty of room. All right, Tom. We'll get in here, they would shout. And they would run along carrying heavy bags and fight round the door to get in first. And one would open the door and mount the steps and stack her back into the arms of the man behind him. And they would all come and have a sniff, and then drop off and squeeze into other carriages, or pay the difference and go first. From Houston, I took the cheeses down to my friend's house. When his wife came into the room, she smelt round for an instant. Then she said, What is it?

Tell me the worst. I said, it's cheeses. Tom bought them in Liverpool and asked me to bring them up with me. And I added that I hoped she understood that it had nothing to do with me. and she said that she was sure of that but that she would speak to tom about it when he came back my friend was detained in liverpool longer than he expected and three days later as he hadn't returned home his wife called on me she said what did tom say about those cheeses i replied that he had directed they were to be kept in a moist place and that nobody was was to touch them. She said, "'Nobody's likely to touch them. Had he smelt them?' I thought he had, and added that he seemed greatly attached to them.

"'You think he would be upset, if I gave a man a sovereign to take them away and bury them?' I answered that I thought he would never smile again. an idea struck her she said do you mind keeping them for me let me send them round to you madam i replied for myself i like the smell of cheese and the journey the other day with them from liverpool i shall ever look back upon as a happy ending to a pleasant holiday but in this world we must consider others the lady under whose roof I have the honour of residing is a widow and for all I know possibly an orphan too she has a strong I may say an eloquent objection to being what she terms put upon the presence of your husband's cheeses in her house she would I instinctively feel regard as a put upon and it shall never be said that I I put upon the widow and the orphan. Very well, then, said my friend's wife, rising. All I have to say is, but I shall take the children to an hotel, until those cheeses are eaten.

I decline to live any longer in the same house with them. She kept her word, leaving the place in charge of the child-woman, who, when asked if she could stand the smell, replied, what smell? and who, when taken close to the cheeses, was told to sniff hard, she said she could detect a faint odour of melons. It was argued from this that little injury could result to the woman from the atmosphere, and she was left. The hotel bill came to fifteen guineas, and my friend, after reckoning everything up, found that the cheeses had cost him eight and sixpence a pound.

he said he dearly loved a bit of cheese but it was beyond his means so he determined to get rid of them he threw them into the canal but had to fish them out again as the bargemen complained they said it made them feel quite faint and after that he took them one dark night and left them in the parish mortuary but the coroner discovered them and made a fearful fuss He said it was a plot to deprive him of his living by waking up the corpses. My friend got rid of them at last by taking them down to a seaside town and burying them on the beach. It gained the place quite a reputation. Visitors said they had never noticed before how strong the air was and weak-chested and consumptive people used to throng there for years afterwards. Fond as I am of cheese, therefore I hold that George was right in declining to take any.

"'We shan't want any tea,' said George. Harris's face fell at this. But we'll have a good round, square, slap-up meal at seven, dinner, tea, and supper combined. Harris grew more cheerful. George suggested meat and fruit pies, cold meat, tomatoes, fruit, and green stuff. For drink, we took some wonderful, sticky concoction of harisies, which you mixed with water and called lemonade, plenty of tea and a bottle of whiskey.

In case, as George said, we got upset. It seemed to me that George harped too much on the getting upset idea. it seemed to me the wrong spirit to go about the trip in. But I'm glad we took the whiskey. We didn't take beer or wine. They are a mistake up the river. They make you feel slippy and heavy. A glass in the evening when you were doing a march round the town

and looking at the girls is all right enough. But don't drink when the sun is blazing down on your head and you've got hard work to do. we made a list of the things to be taken and a pretty lengthy one it was before we parted that evening the next day which was a friday we got them all together and met in the evening to pack we got a big gladstone for the clothes and a couple of hampers for the victuals and the cooking utensils we moved the table up against the window piled everything in a heap in the middle of the floor and sat round and sat round and the table up against the window and piled everything in a heap in the middle of the floor and sat round and looked at it. I said I'd pack. I rather pride myself on my packing.

Packing is one of those many things that I feel I know more about than any other person living. It surprises me myself sometimes how many of those subjects there are. I impressed the fact upon George and Harris and told them that they had better leave the whole matter entirely to me. they fell into the suggestion with a readiness that had something uncanny about it george put on a pipe and spread himself over the easy-chair and harris copped his legs on the table and lit a cigar this was hardly what i intended what i had meant of course was that i should boss the job and that harris and george would potter about under my directions i pushing them aside every now and then was oh you here let me do it there you are simple enough really teaching them as you might say

their taking it in the way they did irritated me there is nothing to us irritate me more than seeing other people sitting about doing nothing when i am working i lived with a man once who used to make me mad that way he would lull on the sofa and watch me doing things by the hour together following me round the room with his eyes wherever i went he said it did him real good to look on at me messing about he said it made him feel that life was not an idle dream to be gaped and yawned through but a noble task full of duty and stern work. He said he often wondered now how he could have gone on before he met me never having anybody to look at while they worked. Now I'm not like that. I can't sit still and see another man slaving and working. I want to get up and superintend and walk round with my hands in my pockets and tell him what to do. It is my energetic nature.

I can't help it. However, I did not say anything, but started the packing. It seemed a longer job than I thought it was going to be, but I got the bag finished at last, and I sat on it and strapped it. "'Ain't you going to put the boots in?' asked Harris. And I looked round, and found I had forgotten. them that's just like harrison he couldn't have said a word until i had got the bag shut and strapped of course and george laughed one of those irritating senseless chuckle-headed crack-jawed laughs of his

they do make me so wild i opened the bag and packed the boots in and then just as i was going to close it a horrible idea occurred to me had I packed my toothbrush? I don't know how it is, but I never do know whether I have packed my toothbrush. My toothbrush is the thing that haunts me when I'm travelling. It makes my life a misery. I dream that I haven't packed it and wake up in the cold perspiration

and get out of the bed and hunt for it. And then in the morning, I pack it before I have used it and have to unpack again to get it it's always the last thing I turn out of the bag, and then I repack and forget it, and have to rush upstairs for it at the last moment, and carry it to the railway station, wrapped up in my pocket-handkerchief. Of course I had to turn out every mortal thing out now, and of course I could not find it.

I rummaged the things up into much the same state they must have been before the world was created, and chaos rained. Of course, I found George's and Harris is 18 times over, but I couldn't find my own. I put the things back, one by one, and held everything up and shook it. Then I found it, inside a boot. I repacked once more. When I had finished, George asked if the soap was in. I said I didn't care a hang whether the soap was in or whether it wasn't, and I slammed the bag, too, and struck.

it and found that I had packed my tobacco in it and had to hurry open it. It got shut up finally at 10.05. And then there remained the hampers to do. Harris said that we should want to be starting in less than 12 hours time and thought that he and George had better do the rest. And I agreed and sat down and they had a go. They began in a light-hearted spirit, evidently intending to show me how to do it. I made no comment. I only waited.

When George is hanged, Harris will be the worst packer in this world. And I looked at the piles of plates and cups and gettles, bottles, and jars and pies and stoves and cakes and tomatoes, and felt that the things would soon, become exciting. It did. They started with breaking a cup. That was the first thing they did. They did that just to show you what they could do. And to get you interested, then Harris packed the

strawberry jam on top of a tomato and squashed it. And they had to pick out the tomato with a teaspoon, and then it was George's turn, and he trod on the butter. I didn't say anything. but i came over and sat on the edge of the table and watched them it irritated them more than anything i could have said i felt that it made them nervous and excited and they stepped on things and put things behind them and then couldn't find them when they wanted them and they packed the pies at the bottom and put heavy things on top and smashed the pies in they upset salt all over everything and as for the butter i never saw it two men do more with one and tuppence worth of butter in my whole life than they did. After George had got it all off his slipper, they'd tried to put it in the kettle. It wouldn't go in, and what was in wouldn't come out. They did scrape it out at last, and put it down on a chair.

And Harry sat on it, and it stuck to him, and they went looking for it all over the room. I'll take my oath I put it down on that chair, said George. daring at the empty seat. I saw you do it myself, not a minute ago, said Harris. Then they started round the room again, looking for it. Then they met again in the centre and started at one another. Most extraordinary thing I ever heard of, said George. So mysterious, said Harris.

Then George got round at the back of Harris and saw it. Why, here it is all the time. he exclaimed indignantly where cried harris spinning round stand still can't you roared george flying after him and they got it off and packed it in the teapot montmorency was in it all of course montmorency's ambition in life is to get in the way and be sworn at if he can squirm in anywhere where he particularly is not wanted and be a perfect nuisance and make people mad and have things thrown at his head, then he feels his day has not been wasted. To get somebody to stumble over him and curse him steadily for an hour is his highest aim and object.

And when he has succeeded in accomplishing this, his conceit becomes quite unbearable. He came and sat down on things just when they were wanted to be packed. And he laboured upon the fixed belief that, Whenever Harris or George reached out their hand for something, it was his cold, damp nose that they wanted. He put his leg into the jam, and he worried the teapots, and he pretended that the lemons were rats. And he got into the hamper and killed three of the rats, before Harris could land him with the frying pan. Harris said I encouraged him.

I didn't encourage him. A dog like that don't want any encouragement. It's the natural original sin that is born in. him that makes him do things like that. The packing was done at 12.50, and Harris sat on the big hamper, and said he hoped nothing would be found broken. George said that if anything was broken, it was broken, which reflection seemed to comfort him. He also said he was ready for bed. We were all ready for bed. Harris was to sleep with us that night, and we went upstairs. We tossed for beds, and Harris had to sleep with me. He said, do you prefer the inside or the outside,

Jay? I said I generally preferred to sleep inside a bed. Harris said it was old. George said, what time shall I wake you, fellows? Harris said seven. I said, no, six, because I wanted to write some letters. Harris and I had a bit of a row over it, but at last split the difference and said half past six. Wakers at six-thirty, George, we said. George made no answer, and we found on going over that he had been asleep for some time. So, we placed the bass where he could tumble into it on getting out in the morning, and went to bed ourselves. End of Chapter 4 Chapter 5 of Three Men and a Boat

This is a Libravox recording All Libravox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer Please visit Libravox.org Recording by Winston Tharp Three Men in a Boat To Say Nothing of the Dog By Jerome K. Jerome

Chapter 5 Mrs. P. Arouses us. George the sluggard. The weather forecast swindle. Our luggage. Depravity of the small boy. The people gather around us. We drive off in great style and arrive at Waterloo. Innocence of southwestern officials concerning such worldly things as trains. We are afloat, afloat in an open boat. It was Mrs. Poppitz that woke me up the next morning. She said, do you know that it's nearly nine o'clock, sir?

Nine o' what? I cried, starting up. Nine o'clock, she replied to the keyhole. I thought you was oversleeping yourselves. I woke Harris and told him. He said, I thought you wanted to get up at six. So I did, I answered. Why didn't you wake me? How could I wake you and you didn't wake me, he retorted. Now we shan't get on the water till after twelve. I wonder you take the trouble to get up at all. I replied, lucky for you that I do. If I hadn't woke you, you'd have lain there for the whole fortnight.

We snarled at each other in this strain for the next few minutes, when we were interrupted by a defiant snore from George. It reminded us for the first time since our being called of his existence. There he lay, the man who had wanted to know what time he should wake us, on his back, with his mouth wide open and his knees stuck up. I don't know why it should be, I'm sure, but the sight of another man asleep in bed when I am up maddens me. It seems so shocking to see the precious hours of a man's life,

the priceless moments that will never come back to him again, being wasted in mere brutish sleep. There was George throwing away in hideous sloth the inestable gift of time, his valuable life, every second of which he would have to account for hereafter, passing away from him unused. He might have been up stuffing himself with eggs and bacon, irritating the dog or flirting with a slavy, instead of sprawling there, sunk in soul-clogging oblivion. It was a terrible thought. Harris and I appeared to be struck by it at the same instant.

We determined to save him, and in this noble resolve our own dispute was forgotten. We flew across and slung the clothes off him, and Harris landed him one with a slipper, and I shouted in his ear, and he awoke. "'Muze, he observed, sitting up. Get up, you fat-headed chunk!' roared Harris. It's quarter to ten. What? He shrieked, jumping out of bed into the bath. Who the thunder put this thing here?

We told him he must have been a fool not to see the bath. We finished dressing, and when it came to the extras, we remembered that we had packed the toothbrushes and the brush and the comb. That toothbrush of mine will be the death of me, I know, and we had to go downstairs and fish them out of the bag. And when we'd done that, George wanted the shaving tackle. We told him that he would have to go without shaving that morning as we weren't going to unpack that bag again for him nor for anyone like him.

He said, Don't be absurd. How can I go into the city like this? It was certainly rather rough on the city, but what cared we for human suffering? As Harris said in his common, vulgar way, the city would have to lump it. We went downstairs to breakfast. Montmorency had invited two other dogs to come and see him off,

and they were whiling away the time by fighting on the doorstep. We calmed them with an umbrella and sat down to chops and cold beef. Harris said, The great thing is to make a good breakfast, and he started with a couple of chops, saying that he would take these while they were hot, as the beef could wait.

George got hold of the paper and read us out the boating fatalities, and the weather forecast, which latter prophesied, rain, cold, wet to fine. Whatever more than usually ghastly thing in weather that may be, occasional local thunderstorms, east wind, with general depression over the Midland counties, London and Channel. Bar falling.

I do think of all the silly, irritating Tom foolishness by which we are plagued, this weather forecast fraud is about the most aggravating. It forecasts precisely what happened yesterday, or the day before, and precisely the opposite of what is going to happen today. I remember a holiday of mine being completely ruined one late autumn by our paying attention to the weather report of the local newspaper. heavy showers with thunderstorms may be expected today, it would say on Monday, and so we would give up our picnic and stop indoors all day, waiting for the rain.

And people would pass the house going off in wagonettes and coaches as jolly and merry as could be, the sun shining out and not a cloud to be seen. Ah, we said as we stood looking at them through the window, won't they come home soaked. And we chuckled to think how wet they were going to get, and came back and stirred the fire and got our books, and arranged our specimens of seaweed and cockle shells. By twelve o'clock, with the sun pouring into the room, the heat became quite oppressive,

and we wondered when those heavy showers and occasional thunderstorms were going to begin. Ah, they'll come in the afternoon, you'll find, we said to each other. Oh, won't those people get wet? What a lark! At one o'clock the landlady would come in to ask us if we weren't going out. That seemed such a lovely day. No, no, we replied with a knowing chuckle. Not we.

we don't mean to get wet. No, no. And when the afternoon was nearly gone, and still there was no sign of rain, we tried to cheer ourselves up with the idea that it would come down all at once, just as the people had started for home, and were out of the reach of any shelter, and that they would thus get more drenched than ever. But not a drop ever fell, and it finished a grand day and a lovely night after it. The next morning we would read that it was going to be a warm, fine-to-set-fair day, much heat. And we would dress ourselves in flimsy things and go out, and half an hour after we had started, it would commence to rain hard, and a bitterly cold wind would spring up, and both would keep on steadily for the whole day, and we would come home with colds and rheumatism all over us,

and go to bed. The weather is a thing that is beyond me altogether. I never can understand it. The barometer is useless. It is as misleading as the newspaper forecast. There was one hanging up in a hotel at Oxford at which I was staying last spring, and when I got there it was pointing to set fare. It was simply pouring with rain outside and had been all day, and I couldn't quite make matters out. I tapped the barometer, and it jumped and pointed to very dry. The Boots stopped as he was passing, and said he expected it meant tomorrow. I fancy that maybe it was thinking of the week before last, but Boots said no, he thought not. I tapped it again the next morning, and it went up still higher, and the rain came down faster than never.

On Wednesday I went and hit it again, and the pointer went round towards set fair, very dry, and much heat, until it was stopped by the peg and couldn't go any further. It dried its best, but the instrument was built so it couldn't prophesy fine weather any harder than it did without breaking itself. It evidently wanted to go on and prognosticate drought and water famine and sunstroke and summons and such things, but the peg prevented it, and it had to be content with pointing to the mere commonplace very dry. Meanwhile the rain came down in a steady torrent, and the lower part of the town was underwater owing to the river having overflowed. Boots said it was evident that we were going to have a prolonged spell of grand weather

sometime, and read out a poem which was printed over the top of the oracle about long-fortold, long-last, short notice soon passed. The fine weather never came that summer. I expect that machine must have been referring to the following spring. Then there are those new style of barometers, the long straight ones. I never can make head or tail of those. There is one side for 10 a.m. yesterday and one side for 10 a.m. today. But you can't always get there as early as 10, you know.

It rises or falls for rain and fine with much or less wind, and one end is N-L-Y, and the other is E-L-Y. What's E-L-Y got to do with it? And if you tap it, it doesn't tell you anything. and you've got to correct it to sea level and reduce it to Fahrenheit, and even then I don't know the answer. But who wants to be foretold the weather? It's bad enough when it comes, without our having the misery of knowing about it beforehand. The prophet we like is the old man, who on a particularly gloomy-looking morning of some day when we particularly want it to be fine,

looks around the horizon with a particularly knowing eye, and says, "'Oh, no, sir, I think it will clear up all right. It will break all right enough, sir.' "'Ah, he knows, we say, as we wish him good morning and start off wonderful how those old fellows can tell. And we feel an affection for that man, which is not at all lessened by the circumstances of its not clearing up, but continuing to rain steadily all day. Oh, well, we feel he did his best. For the man that prophesies us bad weather, on the contrary, we entertain only bitter and revengeful thought.

"'Going to clear it up, do you think? Will you shout cheerily as we pass?' "'Well, no, sir, I'm afraid it's settled down for the day,' he replies, shaking his head. "'Stupid old fool we mutter, what's he know about it? "'And if his portent proves correct, we come back feeling still more angry against him, "'and with a vague notion that somehow or other he has had something to do with it.' "'It was too bright and sunny on this a special morning for George's blood-curdling readings about bar falling, atmospheric disturbance, passing an oblique line over southern Europe, and pressure increasing to very much upset us.

And so, finding that he could not make us wretched and was only wasting his time, he sneaked the cigarette that I had carefully rolled up for myself and went. Then Harris and I, having finished up the few things left on the table, carted out our luggage onto the doorstep and waited for a cab. There seemed a good deal of luggage when we put it all together. There was the Gladstone and the small handbag and the two hampers, and a large roll of rugs, and some four or five overcoats in McIntoshes,

and a few umbrellas. And then there was a melon by itself in a bag, because it was too bulky to go in anywhere, and a couple of pounds of grapes in another bag, and a Japanese paper umbrella, and a frying pan, which being too long to pack, he had wrapped round with brown paper. It did look a lot,

and Harris and I began to feel rather ashamed of it, though why we should be I can't see. No cab came by, but the street boys did, and got interested in the show, apparently, and stopped. Biggs's boy was the first to come around. Biggs is our greengrocer, and his chief talent lies in securing the services of the most abandoned and unprincipled errand boys

that civilization has as yet produced. If anything more than usually villainous in the boy line crops up in our neighborhood, we know that is Biggs's latest. I was told that at the time of the great Corum Street murder, it was promptly concluded by our street that Biggs's boy for that period was at the bottom of it. And had he not been able and replied to the severe cross-examination to which he was subjected by No. 19, when he called there for orders the morning after the crime, assisted by number 21, who happened to be on the step at the time, to prove a complete alibi, it would have gone hard with him.

I didn't know Biggs's boy at that time, but from what I have seen of him since, I should not have attached much importance to that alibi myself. Biggs's boy Zayevs had came round the corner. He was evidently in a great hurry when he first dawned upon the vision, but on catching sight of Harris and me and Montmorency and the things he eased up and stared. Harris and I frowned at him. This might have wounded a more sensitive nature, but Biggs's boys are not as a rule touchy. He came to a dead stop, a yard from our step, and leaning up against the railings and selecting a straw to chew, fixed us with his eye. He evidently meant to see this thing out.

In another moment, the grocer's boy passed on the opposite side of the street. Biggs's boy hailed him. Aye, ground floor at 42s are moving! The grocer's boy came across and took up a position on the other side of the step. Then the young gentleman from the boot shop stopped and joined Biggs's boy, while the empty can superintendent from the Blue Post took up an independent position on the curb. They ain't going to starve, are they? said the gentleman from the boot shop. Ah, you'd want to take a thing or two with you, retorted the Blue Post.

If you was a-gone-crossed the Atlantic in a small boat? They ain't a-gone-across the Atlantic, stuck in Briggs's boy. They're going to find Stanley. By this time, quite a small crowd had collected, and people were asking each other what was the matter. one party the young and giddy portion of the crowd held that it was a wedding and pointed out harris as the bridegroom while the elder and more thoughtful among the populace inclined to the idea that it was a funeral and that i was probably the corpse's brother At last an empty cab turned up. It is a street where, as a rule, and where they are not wanted, empty cabs pass at the rate of three a minute, and hang about and get in your way.

Unpacking ourselves and our belongings into it, and shooting out a couple of Montmorency's friends, who had evidently sworn never to forsake him, we drove away amid the cheers of the crowd, Biggs's boy shying a carrot after us for luck. We got to Waterloo at eleven, and asked where the eleven-five started from. Of course nobody knew. nobody at Waterloo ever does know where a train is going to start from, or where a train, when it does start, is going to, or anything about it. The porter who took our things thought it would go from number two platform,

while another porter, with whom he discussed the question, had heard a rumor that it would go from number one. The stationmaster, on the other hand, was convinced it would start from the local. To put an end of the matter, we went upstairs and asked the traffic superintendent, and he told us that he had just met a man, who said that he had seen it at number three platform. We went to number three platform, but the authorities there said that they rather thought the train

was the Southampton Express or else the Windsor Loop, but they were sure it wasn't the Kingston train, though why they were sure it wasn't they couldn't say. Then our porter said he thought it must be on the high-level platform, said he thought he knew the train. So we went to the high-level platform and saw the engine driver and asked him if he was going to Kingston. He said he couldn't say for certain.

of course, but that he rather thought he was. Anyhow, if he wasn't the 11.05 for Kingston, he said he was pretty confident he was the 932 for Virginia Water, or the 10 a.m. express for the Isle of White, or somewhere in that direction, and we should all know when we got there. We slipped half a crown into his hand and begged him to be the 11.05 for Kingston. Nobody will ever know on this line. We said, what you are, or where you're going, you know the way. You slip off quietly and go to Kingston. well i don't know gents replied the noble fellow but i suppose some trains got to go to kingston and i'll do it give me the half-crown thus we got to kingston by the london and southwestern railway we learned afterward that the train we had come by was really the exeter mail and that they had spent hours at waterloo looking for it and nobody knew what had become of it our boat was waiting for us at kingston just below the bridge and to it we went in our way and round it we store

our luggage and into it we stepped. Are you all right, sir? said the man. Right it is, we answered, and with Harris at the skulls and eye at the tiller lines, and Montmorency unhappy and deeply suspicious in the prow, out we shot onto the waters which for a fortnight were to be our home. End of Chapter 5. Chapter 6 of Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome. Three Men in a Boat to Say Nothing of the Dog by Jerome K. Jerome.

Chapter 6 Kingston Instructive remarks on early English history Instructive observations on carved oak and life in general. The sad case of Stivings, Jr. Musings on Antiquity I Forget that I am steering. Interesting result.

Hampton Corridor. But maize, Harris, as a guide. It was a glorious morning, late spring or early summer, as you care to take it, when the dainty sheen of grass and leaf is blushing to a deeper green, and the year seems like a fair young maid, trembling with strange wakening pulses on the brink of womanhood. The quaint back streets of Kingston, where they come down to the water's edge, looked quite picturesque in the flashing sunlight.

the glinting river with its drifting barges, the wooded towpath, the trim-kept villas on the other side. Harris, in a red and orange blazer, grunting away at the skulls, the distant glimpses of the gray old palace of the Tudors, all made a sunny picture, so bright but calm, so full of life and yet so peaceful, that, early in the day, though it was, I felt myself being dreamily lowly lowly, off into a musing fit. I mused on Kingston, or Kindigstun, as it was once called in the days when Saxon kings were crowned there. Great Caesar crossed the river there, and the Roman legions camped upon its sloping uplands. Caesar, like in later years Elizabeth, seems to have stopped everywhere, only he was more respectable than good Queen Bess. he didn't put up at public houses. She was nuts on public houses, was England's virgin queen. There's scarcely a pub of any attractions, within ten miles of London,

that she does not seem to have looked in at, or stopped at, or slept at, sometime or another. I wonder now, supposing Harris, say, turned over a new leaf, and became a great and good man, got to be prime minister, and died, if they'd put up signs over the public houses that he had patronized. Harris had a glass of bitter in this house. Harris had two of Scotch Cold here in the summer of 88. Harris was chucked from here in December, 1886. No, there'd be too many of them.

It would be the houses he'd never entered that would become famous. Only house in South London that Harris never had a drink in. The people would flock to it to see what could have been matter with it? How poor, weak-minded King Edwy must have hated Kinigston. The coronation feast had been too much for him. Maybe Boar's head, stuffed with sugar plums, did not agree with him. It wouldn't with me, I know. And he'd had enough of sack and mead, so he slipped off from the noisy revel to steal a quiet moonlit hour with his beloved Elgiva. Perhaps from the casement, standing hand in hand,

they were watching the calm moonlight of the river, while from the distant hills, the boisterous revelry, floated in broken bursts of faint-herd, din and tumult. Then brutal Odo and St. Dunstan forced their rude way into the quiet room, and hurl coarse insults at the sweet-faced queen,

and drag poor Edwy back to the loud clamour of the drunken brawl. Years later, to the country, crash of battle music. Saxon kings and Saxon revelry were buried side by side, and Kingston's greatness passed away for a time to rise once more when Hampton Court became the palace of the tutors and the Stuarts, and the royal barges strained at their moorings on the river's bank, and bright-cloaked gallants swaggered down the water-steps to cry, What fairy ho!

Gadsukes! Gromersy! Many of the old homes, roundabout, speak very plainly of the days when Kingston was a royal borough, and nobles and courtiers lived there near their king, and the long road to the palace gates were gay all day, with clanking steel and prancing palfreys, and rustling silks and velvets and fair faces. The large and spacious houses, with their orio,

latticed windows, their huge fireplaces and their gabled roofs, breathe of the days of hose and doublet, of pearl embroidered stomacers and complicated oaths. They were upraised in the days when men knew how to build. The hard red bricks have only grown more firmly set with time, and their oak stairs do not creak and grunt when you try and go down them quietly. speaking of oak staircases reminds me that there is a magnificent carved oak staircase in one of the houses in Kingston. It is a shop now in the marketplace, but it was evidently once the mansion of some great personage.

A friend of mine who lives in Kingston went in there to buy a hat one day, and, in a thoughtless moment, put his hand in his pocket and paid for it then and there. the shopman, he knows my friend, was naturally a little staggered at first, but quickly recovering himself, and feeling that something ought to be done to encourage this sort of thing, asked our hero if he would like to see some fine old carved oak. My friend said he would, and the shopman thereupon took him through the shop and up the staircase of the house. The balusters were a superb piece of workmanship, and the wall all the way up was oak-panelled, with carving that would have done credit to a palace.

From the stairs they went into the drawing-room, which was a large, bright room, decorated with a somewhat startling, though cheerful, paper of a blue ground. There was nothing, however, remarkable about the apartment, and my friend wondered why he had been brought there. The proprietor went up to the paper and tapped it. It gave forth a wooden sound. "'Oak!' he explained.

all carved oak right up to the ceiling, just the same as you saw on the staircase. But, great Caesar, man, expostulated my friend. You don't mean to say you've covered over carved oak with blue wallpaper. Yes, was the reply. It was expensive work. Had to matchboard it all over first, of course. But the room looks cheerful now. It was awful gloomy before. I can't say I altogether blame the man, which is doubtless a great relief to his mind.

From his point of view, which would be that of the average householder, desiring to take life as lightly as possible, and not that of the old curiosity shop maniac, there is reason on his side. Carved oak is very pleasant to look at, and to have a little love. But it is no doubt somewhat depressing to live in, for those whose fancy does not lie that way. It would be like living in a church.

No. What was sad in his case was that he, who didn't care for carved oak, should have his drawing-room panelled in it, while people who do care for it have to pay enormous prices to get it. It seems to be the rule of this world. Every person has what he doesn't want, and other people have what he does want.

Married men have wives, and don't seem to want them. and young single fellows cry out that they can't get them. Poor people who can hardly keep themselves have eight hearty children, rich old couples with no one to leave their money to die childless. Then there are the girls with lovers. The girls that have lovers never want them. They say they'd rather be without them and that they bother them,

and why don't they go and make love to Miss Smith and Miss Brown, who are played in elderly, and haven't got any lovers? They themselves don't want lovers. They never mean to marry. It does not do to dwell on these things. It makes one so sad. There was a boy at our school. We used to call him Sandford and Merton.

His real name was Stivings. He was the most extraordinary lad I have ever come across. I believe he really liked study. He used to get into awful rows for sitting up in bed and reading Greek. and as for French irregular verbs, there was simply no keeping him away from them. He was full of weird and unnatural notions about being a credit to his parents and an honor to the school. He yearned to win prizes and grow up and be a clever man, and had all those sorts of weak-minded ideas.

I never knew such a strange creature. Yet harmless, mind you, as the babe unborn. Well, that boy used to get ill about twice a week so that he couldn't go to school. There was never such a boy to get ill as that Santa Fred and Merton. If there was any known disease going within ten miles of him, he had it and had it badly. He would take bronchitis in the dog days and have hay fever at Christmas. After a six weeks period of drought, he would be stricken down with rheumatic fever, and he would go out in a November fog and come home with the sunstroke.

They put him under laughing gas one year, pull lad, and drew out all his teeth, and gave him a false set, because he suffered so terribly with toothache. Then it turned to neurologia and earache. He was never without a cold, except once for nine weeks when he had the scarlet fever, and he always had chillblains.

During the great color of scare of 18, our neighborhood was singularly free of it. There was only one reputed case in the whole parish, and that case was Youngstivings. He had to stop in bed when he was ill, and eat chicken and custards and hot-house grapes, and he would lie there and sob because they wouldn't let him do Latin exercises, and took his German grammar away from him.

And we other boys, who would have sacrificed ten terms of our school life for the sake of being ill for a day, and had no desire whatever, to give our parents any excuse for being stuck up about us, couldn't catch so much as a stiff neck. We fooled about in drafts, and it did us good and freshened us up,

and we took things to make us sick, and they made us fat and gave us an appetite. Nothing we could think of seemed to make us ill until the holidays began. Then, on the breaking up day, we caught colds and whooping cough, and all kinds of disorders, which lasted until the term recommenced, when, in spite of everything we could maneuver to the contrary,

we would suddenly get well again and be better than ever. Such is life, and we are but grass that is cut down and put into the oven and baked. To go back to the carved oak question, they must have had very fair notions of the artistic and the beautiful our great-grandfathers, why all our art treasures of the today are only the dug-up commonplaces of three or four hundred years ago, I wonder if there is real intrinsic beauty in the old soup-plates, beer-mugs, and candle-snuffers, that we prize so now, or if it is only the halo of age glowing around them that gives them their charms in our eyes. The old blue that we hang about our walls as ornaments, with a common every day,

day household utensils of a few centuries ago, and the pink shepherds and the yellow shepherdesses that we hand round now for all our friends to gush over and pretend they understand, with the unvalued mantle ornaments that the mother of the 18th century would have given the baby to suck when he cried. Will it be the same in the future? Will the prized treasures of today always be the cheap trifles of the day before? Will rows of our will and patterned dinner plates, be ranged above the chimney-pieces of the great in the year 2000 and odd? Will the white cups with gold rims and beautiful gold flower inside, species unknown, that our Sarah Jane's now break in sheer light-heartedness of spirit, be carefully mended

and stood upon a bracket, and dusted only by the lady of the house? That china dog that ornaments the bedroom of my furnished lodgings. It is a white dog, its eyes blue, its nose is a delicate red with spots. Its head is painfully erect. Its expression is amiability carried to the verge of imbecility. I do not admire it myself. Considered as a work of art,

I may say it irritates me, thoughtless friends jeer at it, and even my landlady herself has no admiration for it, and excuses its presence by the circumstance that her aunt gave it to her. But in 200 years' time, it is more than probable that the dog will be dug up from somewhere or other, minus its legs, and with its tail broken, and will be sold for old china and put in a glass cabinet, and people will pass it round and admire it, they will be struck by the wonderful depth of color on the nose,

and speculate as to how beautiful the bit of the tail that is lost no doubt was. we in this age do not see the beauty of that dog we are too familiar with it it is like the sunset and the stars we are not awed by their loveliness because they are common in our eyes so it is with the china dog in twenty two eighty eight people will gush over it the making of such dogs will have become a lost art our descendants will wonder at how we did it and say how clever we were we shall be referred to lovingly as those grand old artists that flourished in the 19th century and produced those China dogs. The sampler that the eldest daughter did at school would be spoken of as tapestry of the Victorian era, and be almost priceless. The blue and white mugs of the present-day roadside inn

will be hunted up all cracked and chipped and sold for their weight in gold, and rich people will use them for cleric-com. and travelers from Japan will buy up all the presents from Ramsgate and souvenirs of Margate that may have escaped destruction and take them

back to Jado as ancient English curios. At this point Harris threw down the skulls, got up and left his seat, and sat on his back, and stuck his legs in the air. Montmorency howled and turned a somersault,

and the top happer jumped up and all the things came out. I was somewhat surprised, but did not lose my temper. I said, pleasantly enough, Hello, what's that for? What's that for? Why? Now, on second thought, I will not repeat what Harris said. I may have been to blame, I admit it, but nothing excuses violence of language and coarseness of expression, especially on a man who has been carefully brought up, as I know Harris had been. I was thinking of other things, and forgot, as anyone might easily understand, that I was staring, and the consequence was that we'd got mixed up a good deal with the towpath.

It was difficult to say for a moment, which was us, and which was the Middlesex bank of the river, but we found out after a while, and separated ourselves. Harris, however, said that he had done enough for a bit, and proposed that I should take a turn, so, as we were in, I got out and took the tow-line, and ran the boat on past Hampton Court. What a dear old wall that is that runs along the river there. I never pass it without feeling better for the sight of it. Such a mellow, bright, sweet-old wall, what a charming picture it would make, with the lichen creeping here and the moss growing there.

A shy young vine peeping over the top of this spot, to see what is going on upon the busy river, and the sober old ivy clustering a little further down. There are fifty shades and tints and hues in every ten yards of that old wall. If I could only draw, and I knew how to paint, I could make a lovely sketch of that old wall, I'm sure. I've often thought I should like to live at Hampton Court.

It looks so peaceful and so quiet, and it is such a dear old place to ramble, in the early morning before many people are about. But there, I don't suppose I should really care for it when it came to actual practice. It would be so ghastly dull and depressing in the evening, when your lamp cast uncanny shadows on the panelled walls, and the echo of distant feet rang through the cold stone corridors, and now drew nearer, and now died away,

and all was death-like silence, save the beating of one's own heart. We are creatures of the sun, we men and women. We love light and life. That is why we crowd into the towns and cities, and the country grows more and more deserted every year. In the sunlight, in the daytime, when nature is alive and busy all about us, we like the open hillsides and the deep woods well enough. But in the night, when our mother earth has gone to sleep and left us waking, oh, the world seems so lonesome, and we get frightened like children in a silent house. Then we sit and sob and long for the gaslit streets and the sound of human voices and the answering throb of human life. We feel so helpless and so little in the great stillness,

when the dark trees rustle in the night wind. There are so many ghosts about, and their silent sighs make us feel so sad. Let us gather together in the great cities and lighted huge bonfires of a million gas jets and shout and sing together and feel brave. Harris asked me if I'd ever been to the maze at Hampton Court. He said he went in once to show somebody else the way. He'd studied it up on a map, and it was so simple it seemed foolish. Hardly worth the twopence charged for admission. Harris said he thought the map must have been got up as a practical joke because it wasn't a bit like the real thing and only misleading. It was a country cousin that Harris took in. He said, we'll just go in here so that you can say you've been, but it's

very simple. It's absurd to call it a maze. You keep on taking the first turning to the right. We'll just walk round for ten minutes and then go and get some lunch. They met some people soon after they had got inside, who said they'd been there for a three-quarter of an hour and had had about enough of it. Harris told them they could follow him if they liked. He was just going in and then should turn around and come out again. They said it was very kind of him, and fell behind and followed. They picked up various other people who wanted to get it over, as they went along, until they had absorbed all the persons in the maze. People who'd given up all hopes of ever getting either in or out, or of ever seeing their home and friends again,

plucked up courage at the sight of Harris and his party and joined the procession, blessing him. Harris said he should judge there must have been twenty people following him in all, and one woman with a baby who'd been in there all morning insisted on taking his arm for fear of losing him. Harris kept on turning to the right, but it seemed a long way, and his cousin said he supposed it was a very big maze. Oh, one of the largest in Europe, said Harris. "'Yes, it must be,' replied the cousin, "'because we've walked a good two miles already.'

Harris began to think it rather strange himself, but he held on until, at last, they passed the half of a penny bun on the ground that Harris's cousins swore he had noticed there seven minutes ago. Harris said, "'Oh, impossible!' But the woman with the baby said,

"'Not at all, as she herself had taken it from the child and thrown it down there just before she met Harris. She also added that she wished she never met Harris and expressed an opinion that he was an imposter. This made Harris mad, and he produced his map and explained his theory. The map may be all right enough, said one of the party. If you know whereabouts in it we are now.

Harris didn't know, and suggested the best thing to do would be to go back to the entrance and begin again. For the beginning again part, there was not much enthusiasm, but with regards to the advisability of going back to the entrance, there was complete unanimity. And so they turned and trailed after Harris again in the opposite direction. About ten minutes more passed, and then they found themselves in the center. Harris thought at first of pretending that that was what he had been aiming at. But the crowd looked dangerous, and he decided to treat it like an accident. Anyhow, they had got something to start from then.

They did know where they were, and the map was once more consulted, and the thing seemed simpler than ever, and off they started for the third time. And three minutes later they were back at the center again. After that, they simply couldn't get anywhere else. Whatever way they turned brought them back to the middle. It became so regular at length that some of the people stopped there and waited for the others to take a walk round and come back to them. Harris drew out his map again, after a while, but the sight of it only infuriated the mob, and they told him to go and curl his hair with it. Harris said that he couldn't help feeling that, to a certain extent, he had become unpopular.

They all got crazy at last and sang out for the keeper, and the man came and climbed up the ladder outside and shouted out directions to them, but all their heads were, by this time, in such a confused whirl. that they were incapable of grasping anything, and so the man told them to stop where they were, and he would come to them. They huddled together and waited, and he climbed down and came in.

He was a young keeper, as luck would have it, and knew to the business, and when he got in, he couldn't find them, and he wandered about trying to get to them, and then he got lost. They caught sight of him every now and then, rushing about the other side of the hedge, and he would see them,

and rushed to get to them, and they would wait there for about five minutes, and then he would reappear again in exactly the same spot, and asked them where they had been. They had to wait till one of the old keepers came back from his dinner before they got out. Harris said he thought it a very fine maze, so far as he was a judge, and we agreed that we would try to get George to go into it on our way back. End of Chapter 6.

Chapter 7 of 3 Men in a Boat This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Tara Mendoza. Three men in a boat. To say nothing of the dog. By Jerome K. Jerome.

Chapter 7. The river in its Sunday garb. Dress on the river. A chance for the men. Absence of taste in Harris. George's blest. a day with the fashion-plate young lady. Mrs. Thomas's tomb. The man who loves not graves and coffins and skulls. Harris mad. His views on George and Banks and Lemonade. He performs

tricks. It was while passing through Mosley Lock that Harris told me about his maze experience. It took us some time to pass through, as we were the only boat, and it is a big lock. I don't think I ever remember to have seen Mousley-Lock before with only one boat in it. It is, I suppose, Bolter's not even accepted, the busiest lock on the river. I have stood and watched it sometimes when you could not see any water at all, but only a brilliant tangle of bright blazers and gay caps and saucy hats and many-colored perisels and silken rugs and cloaks and streaming ribbons and dainty whites. When looking down into the lock from the quay, you might fancy that.

It was a huge box into which flowers of every hue and shade had been thrown pell-mell, and lay piled up in a rainbow heap that covered every corner. On a fine Sunday it presents this appearance nearly all day long, while up the stream and down the stream lie waiting their turn outside the gates, long lines of still more boats, and boats are drawing near and passing away, so that the sunny river from the palace up to Hampton Church is dotted and decked with yellow and blue and orange and white and red and pink. All the inhabitants of Hampton and Mouselie's dress themselves up in boating costume and come and mouch round their lock with their dogs,

and flirt and smoke and watch the boats, and altogether, what with the caps and jackets of the men, the pretty-coloured dresses of the women, the excited dogs, the moving boats, the white sails, the pleasant landscape and the sparkling water. It is one of the gayest sights I know of near this dull old London. town. The river of Forbes a good opportunity for dress, for once in a way we men are able to show our taste in colors, and I think we come out very natty, if you ask me.

I always like a little red in my things, red and black. You know, my hair is a sort of golden brown, rather a pretty shade, I've been told, and a dark red matches it beautifully. And then I always think a light blue necktie goes so well with it, and a pair of those Russian leather shoes, and a red silk handkerchief around the waist. A hinkerchief looks so much better than a belt. Paris always keeps to shades or mixtures of yellow and orange, but I don't think he is at all wise in this. His complexion is too dark for yellows.

Yellows don't suit him. There can be no question about it. I want him to take to blue as a background, with white or cream for relief. But there, the less taste a person has in dress, the more obstinate he always seems to be. it is a great pity because he will never be a success as it is while there are one or two colours in which he might not really look so bad with his hat on george has bought some new things for this trip and i'm rather vexed about them the blazer is loud i should not like george to know that i thought so but there really is no other word for it he brought it home and showed it to us on thursday evening we asked him what colour he called it and he said he didn't know he didn't think there was a name for the colour

the man had told him it was an oriental design george put it on and asked us what we thought of it harris said that as an object to hang over a flower-bed in early spring to frighten the birds away he should respect it but that considered as an article of dress for any human being except a margate nigger it made him ill george got quite huffy but as harris said if he didn't want his opinion why did he ask for it what troubles harris and myself with regard to it is that we are afraid it will attract attention to the boat girls also don't look half bad in a boat if prettily dressed nothing is more fetching to my thinking than a tasteful boating costume but a boating costume it would be as well if all ladies would understand ought to be a costume that can be worn in a boat and not merely under a glass case it utterly spoils an excursion if you have folk in the boat who are thinking all the time a good deal more of their dress than of the trip. It was my misfortune once to go for a water picnic with two ladies of this kind. We did have a lively time. They were both beautifully got up, all lace and silky stuff,

and flowers and ribbons and dainty shoes and light gloves, but they were dressed for photographic studio, not for a river picnic. They were the boating costumes of a French fashion plate. It was ridiculous, fooling about in them anywhere near real earth, air and water. The first thing was that they thought the boat was not clean. We dusted all the seats for them, and then assured them it was, but they didn't believe us. One of them rubbed the cushion with the forefinger of a glove, and showed the result to the other, and they both sighed and sat down with the air of early Christian martyrs trying to make themselves comfortable up against the stake.

You're liable to occasionally bash a little, when sculling, and it appeared that a drop of water ruined those costumes. The mark never came out, and a stain was left on the dress forever. I was stroke. I did my best. I feathered some two feet high, and I paused at the end of each stroke to let the blades drip before returning them, and I picked out a smooth bit of water to drop them into again each time. Both said after a while that he did not feel himself as sufficiently accomplished oarsman to pull me up with me. But that he would sit still if I would allow him and study my stroke, he said it interested him. But notwithstanding all this, and try as I would, I could not help an occasional flicker of water from going over those dresses. The girls did not

complain, but they huddled up close together and set their lips firm, and every time a drop touched them, they visibly shrank and shuddered. It was a noble sight to see them suffering thus in silence, but it unnerved me altogether. I am too sensitive. I got wild and fitful in my rowing, and splashed more and more, the harder I tried not to. I gave it up at last. I said I'd row-bow. Bo thought the arrangement would be better, too, and we changed places. The ladies gave an involuntary sigh of relief when they saw me go and quite brightened up for a moment. Poor girls! They had better to have put him up with me.

The man they'd got now was a jolly, light-hearted, thick-headed sort of a chap, with about as much sensitiveness in him as there might be in a newfoundland puppy. You might look daggers at him for an hour, and he would not notice it, and it would not trouble him if he did. He set a good rollic and dashing stroke that sent the spray playing all over the boat like a fountain, and made the whole crowd sit up straight in no time. When he spread more than pint of water over one of those dresses, he would give a pleasant little laugh and say,

Ha ha ha, I beg your pardon, I'm sure, and offer them as handkerchief to wipe it off with, Oh, it's of no consequence, the poor girls would murmur and reply, and covertly draw rugs and coats over them, and try and protect themselves with their lace perils. At lunch they had a very very very, bad time of it. People wanted them to sit on the grass, and the grass was dusty, and the tree trunks, against which they were invited to lean, did not appear to have been brushed for weeks.

So they spread their handkerchiefs on the ground and sat on those bolted upright. Somebody in walking about with a plate of beefsteak pie tripped up over a root and sent the pie flying. None of it went over them, fortunately, but the accident suggested a fresh danger to them, and agitated them. And whenever anybody moved about after that with anything in his hand that could fall and make a mess, they watched that person with growing anxiety until he sat down again. "'Now then, girls,' said our friend Bo to them cheerily after it was all over, "'Come along, you've got to wash up!' They didn't understand him at first. When they grasped the idea, they said they feared they did not know how to wash up.

"'Oh, I'll soon show you,' he cried. "'It's rare fun. You lie down on your... I mean, you'll lean over the bank, you know, and slosh the things about in the water. The eldest sister said that she was afraid that they hadn't got on dresses suited to the work. Oh, they'll be all right, said he lightheartedly. Tuck them up.

And he made them do it, too. He told them that that sort of thing was half the fun of a picnic. They said it was very interesting. Now I come to think. and get over. Was that young man as dense-headed as we thought, or was he—no, impossible. There was such a simple childlike expression about him. Harris wanted to get out at Hampton Church to go and see Mrs. Thomas's tomb. Who was Mrs. Thomas, I asked.

How should I know? replied Harris. She's a lazy. Got a funny tune, and I want to see it. I objected. I don't know whether it is that I am built with. wrong, but I never did seem to hanker after tombstones myself. I know that the proper thing to do when you get to a village or town is to rush off to the churchyard and enjoy the graves, but it is a recreation that I always deny myself. I take no interest in creeping round dim and chilly churches behind wheezy old men reading epitaphs. Not even the sight of a bit of cracked brass let into a stone affords me what I call real happiness. I shock respectable

sextons, by my imperturbability, I'm able to assume before exciting inscriptions, and by my lack of enthusiasm for the local family history, while my ill-concealed anxiety to get outside wounds their feelings. One golden morning of a sunny day, I lent against the low stone wall that got at a little village church, and I smoked and drank in deep, calm gladness from the sweet restful scene. The grey old church with its clustering ivy and its quaint carved wooden porch, the white lane winding down the hill between tall rows of elms, the thatched roof cottages peeping above their trim kept hedges, the silver river in the hollow, the wooded hills beyond.

It was a lovely landscape. It was idyllic, poetical, and it inspired me. I felt good and noble. I felt I didn't want to be simple and wicked anymore. I would come and live here, and never do any more wrong, and lead a blameless, beautiful life, and have silver hair when I got old, and all that sort of thing. In that moment, I forgave all my friends and relations for their wickedness and cussedness, and I blessed them. They did not know that I blessed them.

They went their abandoned way, all unconscious of what I, far away in that peaceful village, was doing for them, but I did it. And I wished that I could let them know that I had done it, because I wanted to make them happy. I was going on thinking away all these grand, tender thoughts, when my reverie was broken in upon by a shrill piping voice crying out, All right, sir, all right! I'm a-comin! I'm a-comin! It's all right, sir! Don't you be in a hurry?

I looked up and saw an old, bold-headed man hobbling across the churchyard towards me, carrying a huge bunch of keys in his hand that shook and jingled at every step, I motioned him away with silent dignity, but he still advanced, screeching out the while. "'I'm a-comin, sir! I'm a-comin'-a-comin' a little lame. I ain't as sproise I used to be. This way, sir.' "'Go away, you miserable old man,' I said. "'I come as soon as I could, sir,' he replied. "'My missus never saw you till just this minute. You follow me, sir.'

"'Go away,' I repeated. Leave me, before I get over the wall and slay you. He seemed surprised. Don't you want to see the tombs, he said. No, I answered, I don't. I want to stop here, leaning against this gritty old wall. Go away, and don't disturb me. I am chock full of beautiful and noble thoughts,

and I want to stop like it, because it feels nice and good. Don't you come fooling about, making me mad? Shivering away all my better feelings with his stooping, silly tombstone nonsense of yours, go away and get somebody to bury you cheap, and I'll pay half the expense. He was bewildered for a moment. He rubbed his eyes and looked hard at him. I seemed to human enough on the outside. He couldn't make it out. He said, you was a stranger in these pots. You don't live here. No, I said, I don't. You wouldn't if I did. Well then, he said, "'You want to see the tombs, graves, folks been buried, you know, goffins.'

"'You are an untruther,' I replied, getting roused. "'I do not want to see the tombs, not your tombs. Why should I? "'We have graves of our own, our family has. "'Why, my Uncle Podger has a tomb in Kinsel Green Cemetery "'that is the pride of all that countryside. "'And my grandfather's vault at Bow is capable of accommodating eight visitors, "'while my great Aunt Susan has a brick grave and Finchley Churchard, with a headstone with a coffee-pot, sort of thing is a base relief

upon it, and a six-inch best white stone coping all the way around that cost pounds. When I want graves, it is to those places that I go and revel. I do not want other folks. When you yourself are buried, I will come and see yours. That is all I can do for you. He burst into tears. He said that one of the tombs had a bit of stone upon the top of it, that had been said by some to be probably part of the remains of the figure of a man,

and then another had some words carved upon it, that nobody had ever been able to decipher. I still remained, obdurate, and in broken-hearted tones he said, Well, won't you come and see the memorial window? I would not even see that. So he fired his last shot. He drew near, and whispered hoarsely.

I've got a couple of skulls down in the crypt, he said. come and see those oh do come and see the skulls you are a young man out for a holiday and you want to enjoy yourself come and see the skulls then i turned and fled and as i sped i heard him calling to me oh come and see the skulls come back and see the skulls harris however revels in tombs and graves and epitaphs and monumental inscriptions and the thought of not seeing mrs thomas's grave made him crazy. He said he had looked forward to seeing Mrs. Thomas's grave from the first moment that the trip was proposed. Said he wouldn't have joined it if he hadn't been for the idea of seeing Mrs. Thomas's tomb. I reminded him of George, and how we had to get the boat up to Sheperton by five o'clock to meet him. And then he went off for George. Why was George to fool about all day, and leave us to lug his lumber and old top-heavy barge up and down the river by ourselves to meet him?

why couldn't George come and do some work? Why couldn't he have got off the day and come down with us? Bank be blowed. What good was he at the bank? I never saw him doing any work there, continued Harris. Whenever I go in, he sits behind a bit of glass all day, trying to look as if he was doing something. What's the good of a man behind a bit of glass?

I have to work for my living. Why can't he work? What use is he there? And what's the good of their banks? They take your money, and then when you draw a check, they send it back, smear it all over with, No effects refer to draw. What's the good of that?

That's the sort of trick they served me twice last week. I'm not going to stand it much longer. I shall withdraw my account. If he was here, we could go and see that tomb. I don't believe he's at the bank at all. He's larking about somewhere. That's what he's doing, leaving us to do all the work. I'm going to get out and have a drink."

I pointed out to him that we were miles away from a pub, and then he went on about the river, and what was the good of the river, and was everyone who came on the river to die of thirst. It is always best to let Harris have his head when he gets like this. Then he pumps himself out, and is quiet afterwards. I reminded him that there was concentrated lemonade in the hamper, and a gallon jar of water in the nose of the boat, and that the two only only were. wanted mixing to make it cool and refreshing beverage. Then he flew off about lemonade and, such like Sunday school slops, as he turned them, ginger beer, raspberry syrup, etc, etc.

He said they all produced deceptia, and ruined body and soul alike, and were the cause of half the crime in England. He said he must drink something, however, and climbed upon the seat, and then over to get the bottle. It was right at the bottom of the hamper, and see, difficult to find, and he had to lean over further and further, and in trying to steer at the same time from a topsy-turvy point of view, he pulled the wrong line and sent the boat into the bank, and the shock upset him, and he dived down right into the hamper, and stood there on his head holding on to the sides of the boat like grim death, his legs sticking up into the air, he dared not move for fear of going over, and had to stay there till I could get hold of his

legs and hauling back. And that made him madder than ever. End of Chapter 7. Recording by Tara Mendoza, Phoenix, Arizona, February 2011. Chapter 8 of three men in a boat. This is a Libervox recording. All Libervox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libervox.org. Recording by Tara Mendoza. men in a boat to say nothing of the dog by Jerome K. Jerome. Chapter 8 Blackmailing. The proper course to pursue. Selfish-boreishness of Riverside landowner. Notice boards. Un-Christian-like feelings of Harris. How Harris sings a comic song. A high-class party. Shameful conduct of two abandoned young men.

Some useless information. George buys a banjo. We stopped under the willows by Kempton Park and lunched. It is a pretty little spot there, a pleasant grass plateau, running along by the water's edge and overhung by willows. We had just commenced the third course, the bread and jam, when a gentleman in shirt sleeves and a short pipe came along and wanted to know if we knew that we were trespassing.

We said we hadn't given the master. a sufficient consideration is yet to enable us to arrive at a definite conclusion on that point, but that if he assured us on his word as a gentleman that we were trespassing, we would, without further hesitation, believe it. He gave us the required assurance, and we thanked him, but he still hung about, and seemed to be dissatisfied, so we asked him if there was anything further that we could do for him, and Harris, who is of a chummy suspicion, offered him a bit of bread and jam. I fancy he must have belonged to some society, sworn to abstain from bread and jam, for he declined it quite gruffly, as if he were vexed at being tempted with it, and he added that it was his

duty to turn us off. Harris said that if it was a duty it ought to be done, and asked the man what was his idea with regard to the best means for accomplishing it. Harris is what you would call a well-made man of about number one size, and looks hard and bony, and the man measured him up and down and said he would go and consult his master, and then come back and chuck us both into the river. Of course, we never saw him anymore, and of course, all he really wanted was a shilling. There are a certain number of Riverside ruffs who make quite an income during the summer by slouching about the banks and blackmailing weak-minded noodles in this way. They represent themselves as sent by the proprietor. The proper course to pursue is to offer your name and address

and leave the owner, if he really has anything to do with the matter, to summon you, and prove what damage you have done to his land by sitting down on a bit of it. But the majority of people are so intensely lazy and timid that they prefer to encourage the imposition by giving in to it, rather than put an end to it by the exertion of a little firmness. Where it is really the owners that are to blame, they ought to be shown up. The selfishness of the riparian proprietor grows with every year. If these men had their way, they would close the river Tims altogether. They actually do this along the minor tributary streams, and in the backwaters. They drive posts into the bed of the stream, and draw chains across from bank to bank,

and nail huge notice boards on every tree. The sight of those notice boards rouses every evil instinct in my nature. I feel I want to tear each one down and hammer it over the head of the man who put it up, until I have killed him. and then I would bury him and put the board up over the grave as a tombstone. I mentioned this feeling's mind to Harris, and he said he had them worse than that. He said he not only felt he wanted to kill the man who caused the board to be put up, but that he should like to slaughter the whole of his family and all his friends and relations, and then burned down his house.

This seemed to me to be going too far, and I said so to Harris, but he answered, Not a bit of it. Serve them all jolly well right, and I'd go and sing comic songs on the ruins. I was vexed to hear Harris go on in this bloodthirsty strain. We never ought to allow our instincts of justice to degenerate into mere vindictiveness. It was a long while before I could get Harris to take a more Christian view of the subject. But I succeeded at last, and he promised that he would spare the friends and relations at all events and would not sing comic songs on the ruins. You have never heard Harris sing a comic song, or you would understand the service I had rendered to mankind. It is one of Harris's fixed ideas that he can sing a comic song. The fixed idea, on the contrary, among those of Harris's friends who have heard him try, is that he can't and never will be able to, and that he ought not to be allowed to try. When Eris is at a party, and is asked to sing, he replies,

"'Well, I can only sing a comic song, you know.' "'And he says it in a tone that implies that is singing. "'Of that, however, is a thing that you ought to hear once and then die.' "'Oh, that is nice,' says the hostess. "'Do sing one, Mr. Harris.' And Harris gets up and makes for the piano with the beaming cheeriness of a generous-minded man who was just about to give somebody something.

"'Now please! Silence, please, everybody! says the hostess turning around. Mr. Harris is going to sing a comic song. Oh, how jolly, they murmur. And they hurry in from the conservatory and come up from the stairs and go and fetch each other from all over the house and crowd into the drawing room and sit around all smirking in anticipation. Then Harris begins.

Well, you don't look for much of a voice in a comic song. You don't expect correct phrasing or vocalization. You don't mind if a man does find. find out when in the middle of a note, Betty is too high and comes down with a jerk. You don't bother about time. You don't mind a man being two bars in front of the accompaniment, and easing up in the middle of a line to argue it out with the pianist, and then starting the verse afresh. But you do expect the words. You don't expect a man to never remember more than the first three lines of the first verse, and to keep on repeating these until it is time to begin

the chorus. You don't expect a man to break off in the middle of a line and and snigger and say it's very funny, but he's blessed if he can think of the rest of it, and then try and make it up for himself, and, afterwards, suddenly recollect it when he has got to an entirely different part of the song, and break off without a word of warning to go back and let you have it then and there. You don't. Well, I will just give you an idea of Harris's comic singing, and then you can judge of it for yourself. Harris standing up in front of piano and addressing the expectant mob. I'm afraid. It's a very old thing, you know. I expect you all know it, you know. But it's the only thing I know. It's the judge's song out of pinafore. No, I don't mean pinafore. I mean, you know what I mean. The other thing, you know. You must all join in the chorus, you know.

murmurs of delight and anxiety to join in the chorus. Brilliant performance of Prelude to the judge's song in trial by jury. By nervous pianist. Moment arrives for Harris to join in. Harris takes no notice of it. Nervous pianist commences Prilude over again, and Harris commencing singing at the same time dashes off the first two lines of the First Lord's song out of Pinafore.

Nervis Pianist tries to push on with prelude, gives it up and tries to follow Harris with accompaniment to judge a song, out of trial by Jerry. Finds that doesn't answer, and tries to recollect what he is doing and where he is, feels his mind giving way and stops short. Harris, with kindly encouragement, "'It's all right. You're doing it very well indeed. Go on.' "'Nervous pianist.' "'I'm afraid there's a mistake somewhere. What are you singing?' harris promptly why the judges sung out of trial by jury don't you know it some friend of harris is from the back of the room no you're not you chuckle-head you're singing the admiral's song from pina four

long argument between harris and harris's friend as to what harris is really singing friend finally suggests that it doesn't matter what harris is singing so long as harris gets on and sings it and harris with an evident sense of injustice disrankling inside him, requests pianist to begin again. Pianist thereupon starts prelude to the Admiral's song, and Harris, seizing what he considers to be a favorable opening in the music, begins. Harris. When I was a young and cold to the bar! General roar of laughter taken by Harris as a compliment. Pianist, thinking of his wife and family, gives up the unequal contest and retires, his place being taken by a stronger-neerved man, the new pianist, Shirley. Now then, old man, you start off and I'll follow.

We won't bother about any prelude. Harris, upon whom the explanation of matters has slowly donned, laughing, By Job, I beg your pardon. Of course, I've been mixing up the two songs. It was Jenkins confused me, you know. Now then, singing, his voice appearing to come from the cellar, and suggesting the first low warnings of an approaching earthquake. When I was young, I served a term.

office boy to an attorney's firm. Aside, to be honest, it's too low, old man. We'll have that over again, if you don't mind. Sing's first two lines over again in a high falsetto this time. Great surprise on the part of the audience. A never-so lady near the fire begins to cry and has to be let out. Harris continuing, I swept the windows and I swept the door and I...

No, no. I clean the windows of the big. big front door and I polished up the floor. No, dash it! I beg your pardon, funny thing! I can't think of that line and I, and I, oh well, we'll get on to the chorus and chancet. And I diddle, diddle, diddle, little, e, till now I am the ruler of the Queen's Navy. Now then chorus, it is the last two lines repeated, you know. General chorus. and he diddle diddle diddle diddle diddle-dee now he is the ruler of the queen's navy and harris never sees what an ass he is making of himself now he's annoying a lot of people who never did him any harm he honestly imagines that he has given them a treat and says he will sing another comic song after supper speaking of comic songs and parties reminds me of a rather curious incident at which i once assisted which as it throws much light on the inner mental working of human nature in general, odd, I think, to be recorded in these pages. We were a fashionable and highly culture party.

We had on our best clothes, and we talked pretty, and were very happy. All except two young fellows. Students just returned from Germany. Commonplace young men, who seemed restless and uncomfortable, as if they found the proceedings slow. The truth was we were too clever for them. Our brilliant but polished conversation, and our high-class tastes, were beyond them. They were out of place. Among us, they never ought to have been there at all. Everybody agreed upon that later on. We played Mosso from the old German masters.

We discussed philosophy and ethics. We flirted with graceful dignity. We were even humorous in a high-class way. Somebody recited a French poem after supper. And we said it was beautiful. And then a lady sang a sentimental ballad in Spanish, and it made one or two of us weep. It was so pathetic.

And then those two young girls. men got up and asked us if we had ever heard Heslosson, who had just arrived and was then down in the supper room, sing his great German comic song. None of us had heard it that we could remember. The young men said it was the funniest song that had ever been written, and that if we liked, they would get Herslossens Boshin, whom they knew very well to sing it. They said it was so funny that when Herslossin had sung it once before the German emperor, he, the German emperor, had to be carried off to bed. They said nobody could sing it, like air sloths and Boschon. He was so intensely serious all through it that you might fancy he was reciting a tragedy,

and that, of course, made it all the funnier. They said he never once suggested by his tone or manner that he was singing anything funny. That would spoil it. It was his air of seriousness, almost of pathos, that made it so irresistibly amusing. We said we yearned to hear it, that we wanted a good laugh, and they went downstairs and fetched Herr Slossom Botion. He appeared to be quite pleased to sing it, for he came up at once and sat down to the piano without another word. Oh, it will amuse you, you will laugh, whispered the two young men, as they passed through the room, and took up an unobtrusive position behind the professor's back. Herr Slosson Botion accompanied himself. The prelude did not suggest a comic song exactly.

It was a weird, soul, flair, it quite made one's flue. But we murmured to one another that it was the German method and prepared to enjoy it. I don't understand German myself. I learned it at school, but forgot every word of it two years after I had left, and it felt much better ever since. Still, I did not want the people there to guess my ignorance. So I hit upon what I thought to be a rather good idea. I kept my eye on the two young students and followed them.

When they tittered, I tittered. When they roared, I roared. and I also threw in a little snigger all by myself now and then, as if I had seen a bit of humour that had escaped the others. I considered this particularly optful on my part. I noticed, as the song progressed, that a good many other people seemed to have their eye fixed on the two young men as well as myself. These other people also tittered when the young men tittered, and roared when the young men roared, and as the two young men tittered and roared, and exploded with laughter pretty continuously all through the song, it went exceedingly well.

And yet, that German professor did not seem happy. At first, when we began to laugh, the expression on his face was one of intense surprise, as if laughter were the very last thing he had expected to be greeted with. We thought it's very funny. We said his earnest manner was half the humor. The slightest hint on his part that he knew how funny he was would have completely ruined it all. As we continued to laugh, his surprise gave way to an air of annoyance and indignation. He scowled fiercely round upon us all, except upon the two young men, who being behind him he could not see. That sent us into convulsions. We told each other that it would be the death of us this thing. The words alone, we said, were enough to send us into fits, but added to

his mock seriousness, oh, it was too much. In the last verse he surpassed himself. He glowered round upon us with a look of such concentrated ferocity that for our being forewarned as to the German method of comic singing, we should have been nervous, and he threw us such a wailing note of agony into the weird music that if we had not known it was a funny song, we might have wept. He finished amid a perfect shriek of laughter. We said it was the funniest thing we had ever heard in all our lives. We said how strange it was that in the face of things like these there should be a popular notion that the Germans hadn't any sense of humor, and we asked the professor why he didn't translate the song into English, so that the common people could understand it and hear what a real comic song was like. Then Herrsloss and Boschon got up and went on awful. He swore at us in German, which I should judge to be a singularly effective language for that purpose.

And he danced, and shook his fists and called us all the English he knew. He said he had never been so insulted in all his life. it appeared that the song was not a comic song at all it was about a young girl who lived in the hearts mountains and who had given up her life to save her lover's soul and he died and meant her spirit in the air and then in the last verse he jilted her spirit and went on with another spirit i'm not quite sure of the details but it was something very sad i know her balshan said he had sung it once before the german emperor and he the german emperor had sobbed like a little child he he Air Boschen said it was generally acknowledged to be one of the most tragic and pathetic songs in the German language. It was a trying situation for us, very trying. There seemed to be no answer. We looked around for the two young men who had done this thing, but they had left the house in an unostentatious manner immediately after the end of the song. That was the end of that party, and ever saw a party break up so quietly, and with so little fuss. We never said good-night, even to one another. We

I came downstairs one at time, walking softly, and keeping the shady side. We asked the servant for our hats and coats and whispers, and opened the door for ourselves, and slipped out, and got round the corner quickly, avoiding each other as much as possible. I have never taken much interest in German songs since then. We reached Sunbury Lark at half-past three. The river is sweetly pretty, just there before you come to the gates, and the backwater is charming, but don't attempt to row up it. I tried to do so once.

I was sculling, and asked the fellows, who was steering if they thought it could be done, and they said, Oh, yes, they thought so. If I pulled hard! We were just under the little footbridge that crosses it between the two weirs, when they said this,

and I bent down over the skulls, and set myself up and pulled. I pulled splendidly. I got well into a steady, rhythmical swing. I put my arms and my legs, my back into it. I set myself a good, quick, dashing stroke, and worked in really grand style. My two friends said it was a pleasure to watch me. At the end of five minutes I thought we ought to be pretty near the weir, and I looked up. We were under the bridge in exactly the same spot that we were

when I began, and there were those two idiots, injuring themselves by violent laughing. I had been grinding away like mad to keep that boat stuck still under that bridge. I let other people pull up backwaters against strong streams now. We schooled up to Walton, a rather large place for a riverside town. As with all riverside places, only the tiniest corner of it comes down to the water, so that from the boat you might fancy it was a village of some half-dozen houses, all told. Windsor and Abedon are the only towns between London and Oxford that you can really see anything of from the stream. All the others hide round corners and merely peep at the river down one street. My thanks to them for being so considerate in leaving the river banks to woods and fields and

waterworks. Even reading, though it does its best to spoil and sully and make hideous as much of the river as it can reach, is good-natured enough to keep its ugly face a good deal out of sight. Caesar, of course, had a little place at Walton, a cab, or an entrenchment or something of that sort. Caesar was a regular up-river man. Also, Queen Elizabeth. She was there, too. You can never get away from that woman. Go where you will. Cromwell and Bradshaw, not the guideman, but the King Charles' headman. Likewise, Sir John here. They must have been quite a pleasant little party altogether. There is an iron-scald's bridle in Walton Church. They used these things in ancient days for curbing women's tongues. They have given up the attempt now. I suppose iron was getting scarce,

and nothing else would be strong enough. There are also tombs of note in the church. And I I was afraid I should never get Harris past them. But he didn't seem to think of them, and we went on. Above the bridge the river winds tremendously. This makes it look picturesque, but it irritates you from a towing or sculling point of view, and causes argument between the man who is pulling and the man who is steering. You pass Oatlin's Park on the right bank here. It is a famous old place.

Henry VIII stole it from some one or other. I forget whom now, and lived in it. there is a grotto in the park which you can see for a fee and which is supposed to be very wonderful but i cannot see much in it myself the late duchess of york who lived at oatlands was very fond of dogs and kept an immense number she had a special graveyard made in which to bury them when they died and there they lie about fifty of them with a tombstone over each and an epitaph inscribed thereon well i dare say they deserve it quite as much as the average christian does At Corway Stakes, the first bend above Walton Bridge was fought a battle between Caesar and Casabalanus. Casabalanus had prepared the river for Caesar, by planting it full of stakes, and had no doubt put up a notice board. But Caesar crossed it in spite of this. You couldn't choke Caesar off that river.

He is the sort of man we weren't round the backwaters now. Halliford and Sheperton are both pretty little spots where they touch the river, but there is nothing remarkable about either of them. There is a tomb in Shepperton, Churchill, however, with a poem on it, and I was nervous, lest Harris should want to get out and fool around it. I saw him fix, a longing eye on the landing-stage as we drew near it, so I managed, by an adroit movement, jerk his cap into the water, and in the excitement of recovering that, and his indignation at my clumsiness, he forgot all about his beloved graves. At Waybridge, the Way, a pretty little stream, navigable for small boats up to Guildford,

and one which I have always been making up my mind to explore, and never have, the Bourne and the Basing Stoke Canal all into the Tims together. The lock is just opposite the town, and the first thing that we saw, when we came in view of it, was George's blazer on one of the lock gates, closer inspection showing that George was inside it. Montmorency set up a furious barking. I shrieked. Harris roared. George waved his hat and yelled back.

The lockkeeper rushed out with a drag under the impression that somebody had fallen into the lock and appeared annoyed at finding that no one had. George had rather a curious oil-skim-covered parcel in his hand. It was round and flat at one end, with a long straight handle sticking out of it. "'What's that?' said Harris. "'A frying-pan!' no said george with a strange wild look littering in his eyes they are all the rage this season everybody has got them up the river it's a banjo i never knew you played the banjo cried harris and i in one breath

not exactly replied george but it's very easy they tell me and i've got the instruction book end of chapter eight read by terra mendoza phoenix arizona February 2011. Chapter 9 of three men in a boat. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Caroline Driggs.

Three men in a boat to say nothing of the dog by Jerome K. Jerome. Chapter 9. George is introduced to work. Heathenish instincts of to toe. lines, ungrateful conduct of a double-skulling skiff, toers and toad, a use discovered for lovers, strange disappearance of an elderly lady, much haste, less speed, being towed by girls, exciting sensation, the missing lock or the haunted river, music, saved. We made George work, now we had

got him. He did not want to work, of course, that goes without saying. He had had a hard time in the city, so he explained. Harris, who is callous in his nature and not prone to pity, said, Ah, and now you are going to have a hard time on the river for a change. Change is good for everyone. Out you get! He could not in conscience, not even George's conscience, object, though he did suggest that perhaps it would be better for him to stop in the boat and get tea ready while Harris

and I towed, because getting tea was such a worrying work, and Harris and I looked tired. The only reply we made to this, however, was to pass him over the tow line and he took it and stepped out. There is something very strange and unaccountable about a toe line. You roll it up with as much patience and care as you would take to fold up a new pair of trousers, and five minutes afterwards, when you pick it up, it is one ghastly, soul-revolting tangle. I do not wish to be insulting, but I firmly believe that if you took an average toe line and stretched it out straight across the middle of the field, and then turned your back on it for 30 seconds,

that when you looked around again, you would find that it had got itself altogether in a heap in the middle of the field, and had twisted itself up and tied itself into knots, and lost its two ends and become all loops, and it would take you a good half hour sitting down there on the grass and swearing all the while to disentangle it again. That is my opinion of toe lines in general. Of course there may be honorable exceptions.

I do not say that there are not. There may be toe lines that are a credit to their profession, conscientious, respectable toe lines, toe lines that do not imagine their crochet work and try to knit themselves up into anti-macassas the instant they are left to themselves. I say there may be such toe lines. I sincerely hope there are,

but I have not met with them. This toe line I had taken in myself just before we had got to the lock. I would not let Harris touch it because he's careless. I had looped it round slowly and cautiously, and tied it up in the middle, and folded it in two, and laid it down gently at the bottom of the boat. Harris had lifted it up scientifically and had put it into George's hand.

George had taken it firmly and held it away from him and had begun to unravel it as if he were taking the swaddling clothes off a newborn infant. And before he had unwound a dozen yards, the thing was more like a badly made doormat than anything else. It is always the same, and the same sort of thing always goes on in connection with it. The man on the bank, who is trying to disentangle it, thinks all the fault lies with the man who has rolled it up, and when a man up the river thinks a thing, he says it. What have you been trying to do with it, making a fishing net of it?

You've made a nice mess you have. Why couldn't you wind it up properly, you silly dummy? He grunts from time to time as he struggles wildly with it. it and lays it out flat on the towpath and runs round and round it trying to find the end. On the other hand, the man who wound it up thinks the whole course of the muddle rests with the man who is trying to unwind it. It was all right when you took it, he exclaims indignantly. Why don't you think what you're doing? You go about things in such a slap-dash style. You'd get a scaffolding pole entangled you would. And they feel so angry with one another

that they would like to hang each other with the thing. Ten minutes go by, and the first man gives a yell and goes mad and dances on the rope and tries to pull it straight by seizing hold of the first piece that comes to his hand and hauling at it. Of course, this only gets it into a tighter tangle than ever. Then the second man climbs out of the boat and comes to help him, and they get in each other's way and hinder one another. They both get hold of the same bit of line and pull at it in opposite directions and wonder where it is caught.

in the end they do get it clear and then turn around and find that the boat has drifted off and is making straight for the weir. This really happened once to my own knowledge. It was up by Bovney, one rather windy morning. We were pulling downstream, and as we came round the bend, we noticed a couple of men on the bank. They were looking at each other with as bewildered and helplessly miserable expression as I have ever witnessed on any human countenance before or since, and they held a long tow line between them. It was clear that something had happened, so we eased up and asked them what was the matter. Why our boat's gone off, they replied in an indignant tone.

We just got out to disentangle the tow line, and when we looked round it was gone. And they seemed hurt at what they evidently regarded as a mean and ungrateful act on the part of the boat. We found the truant for them half a mile further down, held by some rushes, and we brought it back to them. they did not give that boat another chance for a week. I shall never forget the picture of those

two men walking up and down the bank with a tow line looking for their boat. One sees a good many funny incidents up the river in connection with towing. One of the most common is the sight of a couple of toers walking briskly along, deep in an animated discussion, while the man in the boat, a hundred yards behind them, is vainly shrieking to them to stop and making frantic signs of distress with a skull. Something has gone wrong. The rudder has come off, or the boat hook has slipped overboard, or his hat has dropped into the water and is floating rapidly downstream. He calls to them to stop, quite gently and politely at first.

Hi, stop a minute, will you? He shouts cheerily. I've dropped my hat overboard. Then, hi, Tom, Dick, can't you hear? Not quite so affably this time. Then, hi, confound you, you dunder-headed idiots. Hi, stop! Oh, you...

after that he springs up and dances about and roars himself red in the face and curses everything he knows and the small boys on the bank stop and jeer at him and pitch stones at him as he's pulled along past them at the rate of four miles an hour and can't get out much of this sort of trouble would be saved if those who are towing would keep remembering that they are towing and give a pretty frequent look round to see how their man is getting on it is best to let one person tow when two are doing it they get chattering and forget and the boat itself offering as it does but little resistance is of no real service in reminding them of the fact as an example of how utterly oblivious a pair of toas can be to their work george told us later on in the evening when we were discussing the subject of after supper of a very curious instance. He and three other men, so he said, was sculling a very heavily laden boat up from Maidenhead one evening, and a little above Cookham Lock, they noticed a fellow and a girl, walking along the towpath, both deep in an apparently interesting and absorbing conversation. They were carrying a boat hook between them, and attached to the boat hook was a tow line which trailed behind them, its end in the water. No boat was near, no boat was in sight.

there must have been a boat attached to that tow-line at some time or other that was certain but what had become of it what ghastly fate had overtaken it and those who had been left in it was buried in mystery whatever the accident may have been however it had in no way to stir the young lady and gentlemen who were towing they had the boat-hook and they had the line and that seemed to be all that they thought necessary to their work george was about to call out and wake them up but at that moment a bright idea flashed across him and he did didn't. He got the hitcher instead, and reached over and drew in the end of the tow line, and they made a loop in it and put it over their mast, and then they tidied up the skulls and sat down in the stern and lit their pipes. And that young man and young woman towed those four hulking chaps and a heavy boat up to Marlowe. George said he never saw so much thoughtful sadness concentrated into one glance before, as when at the lock that young couple grasped the idea that for the last two miles they had been towing the wrong boat. George fancied that if it had

not been for the restraining influence of the sweet woman at his side, the young man might have given weight of violent language. The maiden was the first to recover from her surprise, and when she did, she clasped her hands and said wildly, oh, Henry, then where is auntie? Did they ever recover the old lady? asked Harris. George replied he did not know. Another example of the dangerous want of sympathy between toa and toad was witnessed by George and myself once up near Walton. It was where the towpath shelves gently down into the water, and we were camping on the opposite bank, noticing things in general. By and by, a small boat came in sight, towed through the water at a tremendous pace by a powerful barge horse, on which sat a very small boy. Scattered about the boat

in dreamy and reposeful attitudes lay five fellows, the man who was steering having a particularly restful appearance. I should like to see him pull the wrong line, murmured George as they passed, and at that precise moment the man did it, and the boat rushed up the bank with a noise like the ripping up of 40,000 linen sheets. Two men, a hamper and three oars immediately left the boat on the larboard side, and reclined on the bank. And one and a half moments afterwards two other men disembarked from the starboard, and sat down among boat hooks and sails and carpet bags and bottles. The last man went on 20 yards further and then got out on his head.

This seemed to sort of lighten the boat and it went on much easier, the small boy shouting at the top of his voice and urging his steed into a gallop. The fellow sat up and stared at one another. It was some seconds before they realized what had happened to them, but when they did, they began to shout lustily for the boy to stop. He, however, was too much occupied with the horse to hear them, and we watched them flying after him until the distance hid them from view. I cannot say I was sorry at their mishap.

Indeed, I only wish that all the young fools who have their boats towed in this fashion, and plenty do, could meet with similar misfortunes. Besides the risk they run themselves, they become a danger and an annoyance to every other boat they pass. Going at the pace they do, it is impossible for them to get out of anybody else's way, or for anybody else to get out of theirs. Their line gets hitched across your mast and overturns you, or it catches somebody in the boat and either throws them into the water or cuts their face open. The best plan is to stand your ground and be prepared to keep them off with the butt end of a mast.

Of all experiences in connection with towing, the most exciting is being towed by girls. It is a sensation that nobody ought to miss. It takes three girls to tow always. Two, hold the rope, and the other one runs round. and round and giggles. They generally begin by getting themselves tied up. They get the line round their legs and have to sit down on the path and undo each other, and then they twist it round their necks and are nearly strangled. They fix it straight, however, at last, and start off at a run, pulling the boat along at quite a dangerous pace. At the end of a hundred yards, they are naturally

breathless and suddenly stop and all sit down on the grass and laugh, and your boat drifts out to midstream and turns round before you know what has happened or can get hold of a skull. Then they stand up and are surprised. Oh, look, they say, he's gone right out into the middle. They pull on pretty steadily for a bit after this, and then it all at once occurs to one of them that she will pin up her frog, and they ease up for the purpose, and the boat runs aground. You jump up and push it off, and you shout to them not to stop. Yes, what's the matter? They shout back. Don't stop, you roar. Don't what? Don't stop. Go on, go on. Go back, Emily, and see what it is they want, says one. And Emily comes back and asks what it is. What do you want? She says, anything happened. No, you reply, it's all right, only go on, you know, don't stop. Why not? Why we can't steer if you keep stopping. You must keep some way on the boat. Keep some what? Some way. You must keep the boat moving. Oh, all. all right, I'll tell them. Are we doing it all right? Oh yes, very nicely indeed, only don't stop.

It doesn't seem difficult at all. I thought it was so hard. Oh no, it's simple enough. You want to keep on steady at it, that's all. I see. Give me out my red shawl. It's under the cushion. You find the shawl and hand it out, and by this time another one has come back and thinks she will have hers too, and they take Mary's on chance, and Mary doesn't want it, so they bring it back and have a pocket comb instead. It is about 20 minutes before they get off again, and at the next corner they see a cow, and you have to leave the boat to chivy the cow out of their way.

There is never a dull moment in the boat while girls are towing it. George got the line right after a while, and towed us steadily on to Penton Hook. There we discussed the important question of camping. We had decided to sleep on board that night, and we had either to lay up just about there or go on past stains.

It seemed early to think about shutting up then, however, with the sun still in the heavens, and we settled to push straight on for Runnymede, three and a half miles further, a quiet, wooded part of the river, and weather is good shelter. We all wished, however, afterward that we had stopped at Penton Hook. Three or four miles upstream is a trifle early in the morning, but it is a weary pull at the end of a long day. You take no interest in the scenery during these last few miles. you do not chat and laugh. Every half-mile you cover seems like two. You can hardly believe you are only where you are, and you were convinced that the map must be wrong. And when you've trudged along for

what seems to you at least ten miles, and still the lock is not in sight, you begin to seriously fear that somebody must have sneaked it and run off with it. I remember being terribly upset once up the river, in a figurative sense, I mean. I was out with a young lady, cousin on my mother's side, and we were pulling down to goring. It was rather late, and we were anxious to get in. At least she was anxious to get in. It was half-past six when we reached Benson's lock, and dusk was drawing on, and she began to get excited then. She said she must be in to supper. I said it was a thing I felt I wanted to be in at two, and I drew out a map I had with me to see exactly how far it was. I saw it was just a mile and a half to the next lock, Wallingford,

and five on from there to cleave. Oh, it's all. all right, I said, we'll be through the next lock before seven, and then there is only one more. And I settled down and pulled steadily away. We passed the bridge, and soon after that I asked if she saw the lock. She said, no, she did not see any lock. And I said, oh, and pulled on. Another five minutes went by, and then I asked her to look again. No, she said, I can't see any signs of a lock.

You are sure you know a lock when you do see one, I asked hesitatingly. not wishing to offend her. The question did offend her, however, and she suggested that I had better look for myself. So I laid down the skulls and took a view. The river stretched out straight before us in the twilight for about a mile. Not a ghost of a lock was to be seen. You don't think we've lost our way, do you? asked my companion. I did not see how that was possible, though as I suggested, we might have somehow got into the weir stream and be making for the falls. This idea did not comfort her in the least, and she began to cry. She said we should both be drowned, and that it was a judgment on her for coming out with me. It seemed an excessive punishment, I thought, but my cousin

thought not and hoped it would all soon be over. I tried to reassure her and to make light of the whole affair. I said that the fact evidently was that I was not rowing as fast as I fancied I was, but that we should soon reach the lock now, and I pulled on for another mile. Then I began to get nervous myself. I looked again at the map. There was Wallingford lock clearly marked a mile and a half below Benson's. It was a good, reliable map. And besides, I recollected the lock myself. I had been through it twice. Where were we? What had happened to us? I began to think it must all be a dream, and that I was really asleep in bed and should wake up in a minute and be told that it was past ten. I asked my cousin if she thought it could be a dream, and she replied that she was just about to ask me the same question.

And then we both wondered if we were both asleep, and if so, who was the real one that was dreaming, and who was the one that was only a dream? It got quite interesting. I still went on pulling, however, and still no lock came in sight, and the river grew more and more gloomy and mysterious under the gathering shadows of night, and things seemed to be getting weird and uncanny. I thought of hobgoblins and banshees and Willa the Whips and those wicked girls who sit up all night on rocks and lure people into whirlpools and things. And I wished I had been a better man and knew more hymns. And in the middle of these reflections I heard the blessed strains of he's got him on, played badly on a concertina and knew that we were saved. I do not admire the

tones of a concertina as a rule, but oh, how beautiful the music seemed to us both then, far, far more beautiful than the voice of Orpheus or the lute of Apollo, or anything of that sort could have sounded. Heavenly melody in our then state of mind would only have still further harrowed us. A soul-moving harmony correctly performed we should have taken as a spirit warning and have given up all hope. But about the strains of, he's got him on, jerked spasmodically, and with involuntary variations, out of a wheezy accordion, there was something singularly human and reassuring. The sweet sounds drew nearer, and soon the boat from which they were worked lay alongside us. It contained a party of provincial aries and Ariets out for a moonlight sail.

There was not any moon, but that was not their fault. I never saw more attractive, lovable people in all my life. I hailed them and asked if they could tell me the way to Wallingford Lock, and I explained that I had been looking for it for the last two hours. Wallingford lock, they answered. Law, love you, sir, but that's been done away with for over a year. There ain't no Wallingford lock now, sir. You're close to Cleve now.

Blow me tight if here ain't a gentleman been looking for Wallingford lock, Bill. I had never thought of that. I wanted to fall upon their necks and bless them, but the stream was running too strong just there to allow of this, so I had to content myself with mere cold-sounding words of gratitude. We thanked them over and over again, and we said it was a lovely night, and we wished them a pleasant trip, and I think I invited them all to come and spend a week with me, and my cousin said her mother would be so pleased to see them, and we sang the soldiers' chorus out of Faust, and got home in time for supper after all.

End of Chapter 9 Chapter 10 of Three Men in a Boat. This is a Libravox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librovox.org. Recording by Tara Mendoza. Three men in a boat to say nothing of the dog by Jerome K. Jerome. Chapter 10

Our first night Under Canvas An Appeal for Help Contrariness of tea-cettles. How to overcome. Supper virtuous, wanted, a comfortably appointed, well-drained desert island, neighborhood of South Pacific Ocean preferred. Funny thing that happened to George's father. A restless night.

Harris and I began to think the Bellwere Lock must have been done away with after the same manner. George had towed us up to stains, and we had taken the boat from there, and it seemed that we were dragging fifty tons after us, and we were walking forty miles. It was half-past seven when we were through, and we all got in and scald up close to the left bank, looking out for a spot to haul up in. We had originally intended to go on to Magna Chata Island, a sweetly pretty part of the river, where it winds through a soft green valley, and to camp in one of the mini-picturesque inlets to be found round that tiny shore. But somehow we did not feel that we yearn. for the picturesque nearly so much now as we had earlier in the day.

A bit of water between a coal barge and a gas-works would have quite satisfied us for that night. We did not want scenery. We wanted to have our supper and go to bed. However, we did pull up to the point, picnic point, it is cold, and dropped into a very pleasant nook under a great elm tree to the spreading roots of which we fastened the boat. Then we thought we were going to have supper. We had dispensed with tea so as to save time,

but George said no, that we had better get the canvas up first before it got quite dark, and while we could still see what we were doing. Then he said all our work would be done, and we could sit down to eat with an easy mind. That canvas wanted more putting up than I think any of us had bargained for. It looks so simple in the abstract. You took five iron arches, like gigantic croquet hoops, and fitted them up over the boat, and then stretched the canvas over them, and fastened it down. It would take quite ten minutes, we thought. That was an understatement. We took up the hoops, and began to drop them into the sockets placed for them. You would not imagine this to be dangerous work, but looking back now, the wonder to me is that any of us are alive to tell the tale. They were not hoops. They were demons. First, they would not fit into their sockets at all, and we had to jump on them and kick them,

and hammer at them with the boat-hook, and when they were in, it turned out that they were the wrong hoops for those particular sockets, and they had to come out again. But they would not come out until two of us had gone and struggled with them for five minutes, when they would jump up suddenly and try and throw us into the water and drown us.

they had hinges in the middle and when we were not looking they nipped us with these hinges in delicate parts of the body and while we were wrestling with one side of the hoop and endeavouring to persuade it to do its duty the other side would come behind us in a cowardly manner and hit us over the head we got them fixed at last and then all that was to be done was to arrange the covering over them george unrolled it and fastened one end over the nose of the boat harris stood in the middle to take it from george and roll it on to me and i kept by the stern to receive it it was a long time coming down to me george did his part all right but it was new work to harris and he bungled it how he managed it i do not know he could not explain himself but by some mysterious process or other he succeeded after ten minutes of superhuman effort and getting himself completely rolled up in it he was so firmly wrapped round and tucked in and folded over that he could not get out he of course made frantic struggles for freedom the birthright of every englishman and in doing so i learned this afterwards knocked over george and then george swearing at herris began to struggle too and got himself entangled and rolled up i knew nothing about all this at the time i did not understand the business at all myself i had been told to stand where i was and wait till the canvas came to me and martinsey and i stood there and waited both as good as gold we could see the canvas being violently jerked and tossed about pretty considerably but we suppose this was part of the method and did not interfere we also heard much smothered language coming from underneath it and we guessed that they were finding the job rather troublesome and concluded that we would wait until things had got a little simpler before we joined in

we waited some time but matters seemed to get only more and more involved until at last george's head came wriggling out over the side of the boat and spoke up it said give us a hand here can't you you cuckoo standing there like a stuffed mummy when you see we are both being suffocated you dummy i never could withstand an appeal for help so i went and undid them not before it was time either for harris was nearly black in the face it took us half an hour's hard labour after that before it was properly up and then we cleared the decks and got out supper we put the kettle on to boil up in the nose of the boat and went down to the stern and pretended to take no notice of it but set to work to get the other things out that is the only way to get a kettle to boil upon the river if it sees that you are waiting for it and are anxious it will never even sing you have to go away and begin your meal as if you were not going to have any tea at all. You must not even look around at it. Then you will soon hear it sputtering away, mad to be made into tea.

It is a good plan, too. If you are in a great hurry, to talk very loudly to each other about how you don't need any tea and are not going to have any, you get near the kettle so that it can overhear you, and then you shout out, "'I don't want any tea, do you, George?' To which George shouts back.

"'Oh, no, I don't like tea. We'll have lemonade instead. Tea so indigestible!' "'Upon which the kettle boils over and puts the stove out. We adopted this harmless bit of trickery, and the result was that by the time everything else was ready, the tea was waiting. Then we lit the lantern and squatted down to supper. We wanted that supper. For five and thirty minutes not a sound was heard throughout the length and breadth of that boat, save the clank of catlery and crockery and the steady grinding of four sets of molars. At the end of five and thirty minutes, Harris said, Ah! And took his left leg out from under him, and put his right one there instead.

Five minutes afterwards, George said, Ah, too, and threw his plate out on the bank, and three minutes later than that, Montmorency gave the first sign of contentment he had exhibited since we had started. and rolled over on his side and spread his legs out and then i said ah and bent my head back and bumped it against one of the hoops but i did not mind i did not even swear how good one feels when one is full how satisfied with ourselves and with the world people who have tried it tell me that a clear conscience makes you feel very happy and contented but a full stomach does the business quite as well and is cheaper and more easily obtained one feels so forgiving and generous after a substantial and well-digestive meal so noble-minded so kindly-hearted it is very strange this domination of our intellect by our digestive organs we cannot work we cannot think unless our stomach will so it dictates to us our emotions our passions after eggs and bacon it says work

after beefsteak and porter it says sleep after a cup of tea two spoonfuls for each cup and don't let it stand more than three minutes it says to the brain now ride right now ride and show your strength. Be eloquent and deep and tender. See with a clear eye into nature and into life. Spread your white wings of quivering thought and saw a godlike spirit over the whirling world beneath you, up through long lanes of flaming stars to the gates of eternity. After hot muffins, it says, Be dull and soulless, Like a beast of the fields, A brainless animal,

With listless eye, Unlit by any ray of fancy or of hope, Or fear, or love, or life. And after brandy, Taken in sufficient quantity, It says, Now come, fool, Grin and tumble that your fellow men may laugh,

Dribble in folly and splutter in sift, sinclin sounds, and show what a helpless ninny is poor man whose wit and will are drowned, like kittens side by side, in half an inch of alcohol. We are but the various sorriest slaves of our stomachs. Reach not after morality and righteousness, my friends. Watch vigilantly your stomach, and diet it with care and judgment. Then virtue and contentment will come and reign within your heart, unsought by any effort of your own, and you will be a good citizen, a loving husband, and a tender father, a noble pious man. Before our supper, Harris and George and I were quarrelsome, and snappy, and ill-tempered. After our supper, we sat and beamed on one another,

and we beamed upon the dog, too. We loved each other, we loved everybody. Harrison moving about, trod on George's corn. Had this happened before supper, George would have expressed wishes and desires concerning Harris' fate in this world, and the next that would have made a thoughtful man's shudder. As it was, he said, steady old man, wear wheat. And Harris, instead of merely observing, in his most unpleasant tones, that a fellow could hardly help treading on some bit of George's foot, if he had to move about at all within ten yards of where George was sitting, suggesting that George never ought to come into an ordinary-sized boat with feet that link, and advising him to hang them over the side, as he would have done before supper, now said,

Oh, sorry, old chap, I hope I haven't hurt you. And George said, not at all, that it was his fault. And Harris said, no, it was his. It was quite pretty to hear them. We lit our pipes and sat, looking out on the quiet night, and talked. George said, why could not we be always like this, away from the world, with its sin and temptation, leading sober, peaceful lives and doing good? I said it was the sort of thing I had often longed for myself, and we discussed the possibility of our going away. we fought to some handy, well-fitted desert island and living there in the woods.

Harris said that the danger about desert islands as far as he had heard was that they were so damp. But George said no, not if properly drained. And then we got onto drains, and that put George in mind of a very funny thing that happened to his father once. He said his father was travelling with another fellow through Wales, and one night they stopped in a little inn, where they were they, There was some other fellows, and they joined the other fellows, and spent the evening with them. They had a very jolly evening, and sat up late, and by the time they came to go to bed, they—this was when George's father was a very young man, was slightly jolly too.

They, George's father and George's father's friend, were to sleep in the same room, but in different beds. They took the candle and went up. The candle lurched up against the wall when they got into the room and went out. and they had to undress and grope into bed in the dark. This they did, but instead of getting into separate beds as they thought they were doing, they both climbed into the same one without knowing it, one getting in with his head at the top, and the other crawling in from the opposite side of the compass,

and lying with his feet on the pillow. There was silence for a moment, and then George's father said, Joe, what's the matter, Tom? replied Joe's voice, from the other end of the day. the bed. Why, there's a man in my bed, said George's father. He is his feet on my pillow. Well, it's an extraordinary thing, Tom, answered the other. But I'm blessed if there isn't a man in my bed, too. What are you going to do? asked George's father. Well, I'm going to chuck him out, replied Joe. So am I, said George's father valiantly. There was a brief struggle.

followed by two heavy bumps on the floor, and then a rather doleful voice said, "'I say, Tom,' yes, how have you got on?' "'Well, to tell you the truth, my man chucked me out. "'So is mine.' "'I say, I don't think much of this inn, do you?' "'What was the name of that inn?' said Harris. "'The pagan whistle,' said George. "'Why?'

"'Ah, no, then it isn't the same.' replied Harris. What do you mean? queried George. Why it's so curious, murmured Harris, but precisely that very same thing happened to my father once at a country inn. I've often heard him tell the tale.

I thought it might have been the same in. We turned in at ten that night, and I thought I should sleep well being tired, but I didn't. As a rule, iron dress and put my head on the pillow, and then somebody bangs at the door and says it is half past

But tonight, everything seemed against me, the novelty of it all, the hardness of the boat, the cramped position, I was lying with my feet under one seat and my head on another. The sound of the lapping water round the boat, and the wind among the branches kept me restless and disturbed. I did get to sleep for a few hours, and then some part of the boat which seemed to have grown up in the night, for it certainly was not there when we started, and it had disappeared by the morning, kept digging into my spine. I slept through it for a while, dreaming that I had swallowed a sovereign, and that they were cutting a hole in my back with a gimlet so as to try and get it out. I thought it very unkind of them, and I told them I would owe them

the money, and they should have it at the end of the month, but they would not hear of that, and said it would be much better if they had it then, because otherwise the interest would accumulate so. I got quite cross with them, after a bid and told them what I thought of them, and then they gave the gimlet such an excruciating wrench that I woke up. The boat seemed stuffy, and my head ached, so I thought I would step out into the cool night air. I slipped on what clothes I could find about, some of mine and some of Georges and Harris's and crept under the canvas onto the bank. It was a glorious night. The moon had sunk, and, looked at the left the quiet earth alone with the stars.

It seemed as if in the silence and the hush, while we had children slept, they were talking with her, their sister, conversing of mighty mysteries and voices too vast and deep for childish human ears to catch the sound. They awe us, these strange stars, so cold, so clear. We are as children,

whose small feet have strayed into some dim-lit temple of the God they have been taught to worship, but no not, and standing where the echoing dome spans the long vista of the shadowy light, glance up, half hoping, half afraid to see some awful vision hovering there. And yet, it seems so full of comfort and of strength, the night. In its great presence, our small sorrows creep away, ashamed. The day has been so full of fret and care, And our hearts have been so full of evil and of bitter thoughts, and the world has seemed so hard and wrong to us. Then night, like some great loving mother, gently lays her hand upon our fevered head and turns our little tear-stained faces up to us and smiles. And though she does not speak, we know what she would say, and lay our hot flushed cheek against her bosom, and the pain is gone.

Sometimes our pain is very deep and real, and we stand before her very silent, because there is no language for our pain, only a moan. Knight's heart is full of pity for us. She cannot ease our aching. She takes our hand in hers, and the little world grows very small and very far away beneath us. And born on her dark wings, we pass for a moment into a mightier presence than her own, and in the one of the one. The wondrous light of that great presence all human life lies like a book before us, and we know that pain and sorrow are but the angels of God. Only those who have worn the crown of suffering can look upon that wondrous light, and they, when they return, may not speak of it or tell the mystery they know. Once upon a time, through a strange country, there rode some goodly nights, and their path lay by a deep wood, where tangled briars grew very thick and strong, and tore the flesh of them that lost their way therein. And the leaves of the trees that grew in the wood were very dark and thick, so that no ray of light came through the branches to lighten the gloom and sadness. And as they passed by that dark wood, one night of those that rode,

Missing his comrades, wandered far away, and returned to them no more, And they, sorely grieving, rode on without him, mourning him as one dead. Now when they reached the fair castle towards which they had been journeying, They stayed there many days and made merry, And one night as they sat, in cheerfully ease around the logs that burned in the great hall, and drank a loving measure, they came the comrade they had lost and greeted them. His clothes were ragged, like a beggars, and many sad wounds were on his sweet flesh. But if on his face they're shown a great radiance of deep joy,

and they questioned him, asking him what had befallen him, and he told them how in the dark wood he had lost his way, and it wandered many days and nights, till torn and bleeding he lay him down to die. Then, when he was nigh unto death, lo! Through the savage gloom there came to him a stately maiden, and took him by the hand and led him on through devious paths, unknown to any man, until upon the darkness of the wood, their donned a light such as the light of day, was unto but as little lamp unto the sun, and in that wondrous light our way-worn night saw as in a dream, of vision, and so glorious, so fair the vision seemed, that of his bleeding

wounds he thought no more, but stood as one entranced, whose joy as deep as is the sea, wherever no man can tell the depth. And the vision faded, and the night, kneeling upon the ground, thanked the good saint who unto that sad wood had strayed his steps, so he had seen the vision that lay their hid. And the name of the dark forest was sorrow. But of the vision that the good night saw therein, we may not speak nor tell. End of Chapter 10.

Recording by Tara Mendoza, Phoenix, Arizona, February 2011. Chapter 11 of three men in a boat. This is a Librevox recording. All Librevox recordings are in the public domain. more information or to volunteer please visit librivox.org recording by Winston Tharp three men in a boat to say nothing of the dog by Jerome K. Jerome Chapter 11

How George Once Upon a Time got up early in the morning George Harris and Montmorency do not like the look of the cold water heroism and determination on the part of Jay George and his shirt story with a moral Harris as Cook Historical retrospect specially inserted for the use of schools I woke at 6 the next morning and found George awake too

We both turned round and tried to go to sleep again But we could not Had there been any particular reason Why we should not have gone to sleep again But have got up and dressed then and there We should have dropped off while we were looking at our watches And have slept till ten As there was no earthly necessity for our getting up

under another two hours at the very least, and our getting up at that time was an utter absurdity, it was only in keeping with the natural cussedness of things in general, that we should both feel that lying down for five minutes more would be death to us. George said that the same kind of thing only worse had happened to him some eighteen months ago when he was lodging by himself in the house of a certain Mrs. Gippings. He said his watch went wrong one evening and stopped at a quarter past eight. He did not know this at the time because for some reason or other he forgot to wind it up when he went to bed, an unusual occurrence with him, and hung it up over his

pillow without ever looking at the thing. It was in the winter when this happened, very near the shortest day and a week of fog into the bargain. So the fact that it was still very dark when George woke in the morning was no guide to him as to the time. He reached up and hauled down his watch. It was a quarter past eight. Angels and ministers of grace defendants, exclaimed George, And here have I got to be in the city by nine. Why didn't somebody call me? Oh, this is a shame. And he flung the watch down, and sprung out of bed,

and had a cold bath, and washed himself and dressed himself, and shaved himself in cold water, because there was not time to wait for the hot, and then rushed and had another look at the watch. Whether the shaking it had received and being thrown down on the bed had started it, or how it was, George could not say, but certain it was that from a quarter past eight it had begun to go. and now pointed to twenty minutes to nine. George snatched it up and rushed downstairs.

In the sitting-room all was dark and silent. There was no fire, no breakfast. George said it was a wicked shame of Mrs. G., and he made up his mind to tell her what he thought of her when he came home in the evening. Then he dashed on his great coat and hat, and seizing his umbrella made for the front door. The door was not even unbolted. George enathematized Mrs. G. for a lazy old woman

and thought it was very strange that people could not get up at a decent, respectable time, unlocked and unbolted the door, and ran out. He ran hard for a quarter of a mile, and at the end of that distance it began to be borne in upon him as a strange and curious thing that there were so few people about, and that there were no shops open. It was certainly a very dark and foggy morning, but still it seems an unusual course to stop all business on that account. He had to go to business. Why should other people stop in bed merely because it was dark and foggy. At length he reached Hoburn. Not a shutter was down, not a bus was about. There were three men inside, one of whom was a policeman, a market cart full of cabges, and a

dilapidated-looking cab. George pulled out his watch and looked at it. It was five minutes to nine. He stood still and counted his pulse. He stooped down and felt his legs. Then with his watch, still in his hand, he went up to the policeman and asked him if he knew what the time was. "'What's the time?' said the man, eyeing George up and down with evident suspicion. "'Why, if you'll listen, you'll hear it strike.' George listened in a neighboring clock immediately obliged. "'But it's only gone three,' said George, in an injured tone when it had finished. "'Well, and how many did you want it to go?' replied the constable.

"'Why nine?' said George, showing his watch. "'Do you know where you live?' said the guardian of public order severely. George thought and gave the address. "'Oh, that's where it is, is it?' replied the man. "'Will you take my advice and go there quietly "'and take that watch of yours with you, "'and don't let's have any more of it?' "'And George went home again, musing as he walked along,

"'and let himself in. "'At first when he got in, he determined to undress and go to bed again, "'but when he thought of the redressing and rewashing "'and the having of another bath, "'he determined he would not, but would sit up "'and go to sleep at the easy-chair. But he could not get to sleep. He never felt more wakeful in his life.

So he lighted the lamp and got out the chess board. It played himself a game of chess. But even that did not enliven him. It seemed slow somehow. So he gave chess up and tried to read. He did not seem to be able to take any sort of interest in reading either, so he put on his coat again and went out for a walk. It was horribly lonesome and dismal,

and all the policemen he met regarded him with undisguised suspicion, and turned their lanterns on him and followed him about, and this had such an effect upon him that at last he began to feel as if he really had done something, and he got to slinking down the by-streets and hiding in dark doorways when he heard the regulation flip-flop approaching. Of course, this conduct made the force only more distrustful of him than ever, and they would come and rout him out and ask him what he was doing there, and when he answered nothing, he had merely come out for a stroll.

It was then four o'clock in the morning. They looked as though they did not believe him, and two plain-closed constables came home with him to see if he really did live where he had said he did. They saw him go in with his key, and then they took up a position opposite and watched the house. He thought he would light the fire when he got inside and make himself some breakfast, just to pass away the time.

But he did not seem to be able to handle anything from a scuttle full of coals to a teaspoon without dropping it or falling over it and making such a noise that he was in mortal fear that it would wake Mrs. G up, and that she would think it was burglars and opened the window and call police, and then these two detectives would rush in and handcuff him and march him off to the police court.

He was in a morbidly nervous state by this time, and he pictured the trial, and his trying to explain the circumstances to the jury, and nobody believing him, and his being sentenced to 20 years penal servitude and his mother dying of a broken heart. So he gave up trying to get breakfast, and wrapped himself in his overcoat, and sat in the easy chair till Mrs. G. came down at half-past seven. He said he had never got up too early since that morning. It had been such a warning to him.

We had been sitting huddled up in our rugs while George had been telling me this true story, and on his finishing it I set to work to wake up Harris with a skull. The third prod did it, and he turned over on the other side and said he would be down in a minute and he would have his laced up boots. We soon let him know where he was, however, by the aid of the hitcher, and he sat up suddenly sending Montmorency,

who had been sleeping the sleep of the just right on the middle of his chest sprawling across the boat. Then we pulled up the canvas, and all four of us poked our heads out over the offside, and looked down at the water, and shivered. The idea, overnight, had been that we should get up early in the morning, fling off our rugs and shawls, and throwing back the canvas, spring into the river with a joyous shout and revel in a long, delicious swim. Somehow, now the morning had come, the notion seemed less tempting. The water looked down.

and chilly. The wind felt cold. Well, who's going to be the first in, said Harris at last? There was no rush for precedence. George settled the manner so far as he was concerned by retiring into the boat and pulling on his socks. Montmorency gave vent to an involuntary howl, as if merely thinking of the thing had given him the horrors, and Harris said it would be so difficult to get him to the boat again and went back and sorted out his trousers. I did not altogether like to give in, though I did not relish the plunge. There might be snags about or weeds, I thought. I meant to compromise matters by going down to the edge and just throwing the water over myself.

So I took a towel and crept out on the bank and wormed my way along to the branch of a tree that dipped down into the water. It was bitterly cold. The wind cut like a knife. I thought I would not throw the water over myself after all. I would go back into the boat and dress. And I turned to do so, and as I turned, the silly branch gave way, an eye and the towel went in together with a tremendous splash, and I was out midstream with a gallon of Thames water inside me before I knew what

happened. By Jove, old J's gone in, I heard Harris say, as I came blowing to the surface. I didn't think he'd have the pluck to do it, did you? Is it all right? sung out George. Lovely, I sputtered back. You are duffers not to come in. I wouldn't have missed this. This for worlds. Why don't you try it? It only wants a little determination. But I could not persuade them. Rather an amusing thing happened while dressing that morning. I was very cold when I got back into the boat, and in my hurry to get my shirt on, I accidentally jerked it into the water. It made me awfully wild, especially as George burst out laughing. I could not see anything to laugh at, and I told George so, and he only laughed the more. I never saw a man laugh so much.

I quite lost my temper with him at last, and pointed out to him what a driveling maniac and an imbecile idiot he was, but he only roared the louder. And then, just as I was landing the shirt, I noticed that it was not my shirt at all, but George's, which I had mistaken for mine, whereupon the humor of the thing struck me for the first time, and I began to laugh. And the more I looked from George's wet shirt to George, roaring with laughter, the more I was amused, and I laughed so much that I had to let the shirt fall back into the water again.

Aren't you? You're going to get it out? said George between his shrieks. I could not answer him at all for a while, I was laughing so. But at last, between my peels, I managed to jerk out. It isn't my shirt. It's yours. I never saw a man's face change from lively to severe so suddenly in all my life before.

What? He yelled springing up. You silly cuckoo! Why can't you be more careful? what you're doing. Why the deuce don't you go out and dress on the bank? You're not fit to be in a boat. You're not. Give me the hitcher. I tried to make him see the fun of the thing, but he could not. George is very dense at seeing a joke sometimes. Harris proposed that we should have scrambled eggs for breakfast. He said he would cook them. It seemed from his account that he was very good at

doing scrambled eggs. He often did them at picnics and went out on yachts. He was quite famous for them. who at once tasted his scrambled eggs, so we gathered from his conversation, never cared for any other food afterward, but pined away and died when they could not get them. It made our mouth's water to hear him talk about the things, and we handed him out the stove and the frying pan, and all the eggs that had not smashed and gone over everything in the hamper, and begged him to begin. He had some trouble in breaking the eggs, or rather not so much trouble in breaking them exactly as in getting them into the frying pan when broken, and keeping them off his trousers

and preventing them from running up his sleeve. But he fixed some half a dozen into the pan at last, and he squatted down by the side of the stove and shivied them about with a fork. It seemed harassing work, so far as George and I could judge. Whenever he went near the pan, he burned himself, and then he would drop everything and dance around the stove, flicking his fingers about and cursing the things.

Indeed, every time George and I looked round at him, he was sure to be performing his feat. We thought at first that it was a necessary part of the colonization, arrangements. We did not know what scrambled eggs were, and we fancied that it must be some red Indian or sandwich island sort of dish that required dances and incantations for its proper cooking. Montmorency went and put his nose over at once, and the fat sputtered up and scald at him, and then he began dancing and cursing. Altogether, it was one of the most interesting and exciting operations I have ever witnessed. George and I were both quite sorry when it was over.

The result was not altogether the success that Harris had anticipated. There seemed so little to show for the business. Six eggs had gone into the frying pan, and all that came out was a teaspoonful of burned and unappetizing-looking mess. Harris said it was the fault of the frying pan and thought it would have gone better if we had had a fish kettle and a gas stove, and we decided not to attempt the dish again until we had those aids to housekeeping by us.

The sun had got more powerful by the time we had finished breakfast, and the wind had dropped, and it was as lovely a morning as one could desire. Little was in sight to remind us of the 19th century, and as we looked out upon the river in the morning sunlight, we could almost fancy that the centuries between us and that ever-to-be-famous June morning of 1215 had been drawn aside, and that we, English yeoman sons and homespun cloth with dirk at belt were waiting there to witness the writing of that stupendous page of history the meaning whereof was to be translated to the common people some four hundred and odd years later by one oliver cromwell who had deeply studied it it is a fine summer morning sunny soft and still but through the air there runs a thrill of coming stir king john has slept at duncroft hall and all the day before the little town of stains has echoed to the clang of arm armed men, and the clatter of great horses over its rough stones, and the shouts of captains,

and the grim oaths and surly jests of bearded bowmen, billman, pikemen, and strange-speaking foreign spearmen. Gay-cloak companies of knights and squires have ridden in, all travel-stained and dusty, and all the evening long the timid townsmen's doors have had to be quick-open to let in rough groups of soldiers, for whom there must be found both bored and lodging, and the best of both, are woe betide the house and all within, for the sword is judge and jury, plaintiff and executioner in these tempestuous times, and pays for what it takes by sparing those from whom it takes it, if it pleases to do so.

Round the campfire and the marketplace gather still more of the baron's troops, and eat and drink deep, and bellow forth roistering's drinking song, and gamble and quarrel as the evening grows and deepens into night, the firelight sheds quaint shadows in their piled up arms and on their uncouth forms. The children of the town steal round to watch them, wondering, and brawny, country wenches, laughing, drawn near to bandy alehouse jest and jive with the swaggering troopers, so unlike the village swains, who now despised,

stand apart behind, with vacant grins upon their broad peering faces, And out from the fields around glitter the faint lights of more distant camps, as here some great Lord's followers lie mustard, and there false John's French mercenaries hover like crouching wolves without the town. And so with Sentinel in each dark street, and twinkling watch-fires on each height around, the night is worn away, and over this fair valley of Old Thames has broken the morning of the great day

that is to close so big with a fate of ages, yet unborn. Ever since gray dawn, in the lower of the two islands, just above where we are standing, there has been great clamor and the sound of many workmen. The great pavilion brought here yester Eve as being raised, and carpenters are busy nailing tiers of seats, while prentices from London town are there with many colored stuffs and silks and cloth of gold and silver. And now, lo, upon the road that winds along the river's bank from stains, there come

tortoise, laughing and talking together in deep guttural base, a half-score of stalwart halberman, barons men these, and halted a hundred yards or so above us on the other bank, and lean upon their arms and wait. And so, from hour to hour, march up along the road, ever-fresh groups and bands of armed men, their casks and breastplates, flashing back the long, low lines of morning sunlight, until as far as I can reach the way seems thick with cool. glittering steel and prancing steeds, and shouting horsemen are galloping from group to group, and little banners are fluttering lazily in the warm breeze, and every now and then there is a deeper stir as the ranks make way on either side, and some great baron on his war-horse, with his guard of squires

around him, passes along to take his station at the head of his serfs and vassals. And up the slope of Cooper's Hill, just opposite, are gathered the wandering rustics and curious townsfolk, who have run from Staines, and none are quite sure what the bustle is about, but each one has a different version of the great event that they have come to see, and some say that much good to all the people will come from this day's work, but the old men shake their heads, for they have heard such tales before. And all the river down to Staines is dotted with small craft and boats and tiny coracles, which last are growing out of favor now, and are used only by the poorer folk.

Over the rapids where in after years trim bell-ware lock will stand, they have been forced or dragged by their sturdy rowers, and now are crowding up as near as they dare come to the great covered barges which lie in readiness to bear King John to where the fateful charter waits his signing. It is noon, and we and all the people have been waiting patiently for many an hour, and the rumor has run round that slippery John has again escaped from the baron's grasp, and is stolen and away from Duncroft Hall with his mercenaries at his heels, and will soon be doing other work than signing charters for his people's liberty. Not so. This time the grip upon him has been

one of iron, and he has slid and wriggled in vain. Far down the road a little cloud of dust has risen, and draws nearer and grows larger, and the pattering of many hooves grows louder, and in and out between the scattered groups of drawn-up men, there pushes on its way a brilliant cavalcade of gay dressed lords and knights, and front and rear in either flank there ride the yeoman of the barons, and in the midst, King John. He rides to where the barges lie in readiness, and the great barons step forth from their ranks to meet him. He greets them with a smile and a laugh, and pleasant, honeyed words, as though it were some feast in his honor to which he had been invited. But as he rises to dismount, he casts one hurried glance from his own French mercenaries,

drawn up in the rear to the grim ranks of the baron's men that hem him in. Is it too late? One fierce blow at the unsuspecting horsemen at his side, one cry to his French troops, one desperate charge upon the unready lines before him, and these rebellious barons might rue the day they dared to thwart his plans. A bolder hand might have turned the game even at that point. Had it had been a Richard there, the cup of liberty might have been dashed from England's lips and the taste of freedom held back for a hundred years.

But the heart of King John sinks before the stern faces of the English fighting men, and the arm of King John drops back onto his reign, and he dismounts and takes his seat in the foremost barge. And the barons follow in with each mailed hand upon the sword-hilt, and the word is given to let go. Slowly the heavy, bright-deck barges leave the shore of Runnymede. Slowly against the swift current they work their ponderous way,

till with a low grumble they grate against the bank of the little island, that from this day will bear the name of Magna Carta Island. And King John has stepped upon the shore, and we wait in breathless silence till a great shout cleaves the air, and the great cornerstone in England's Temple of Liberty has, now we know, been firmly laid. End of Chapter 11. Chapter 12 of Three Men in a Boat.

This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org. Recording by Caroline Driggs. Three Men in a Boat to Say Nothing of the Dog. By Jerome K. Jerome, Chapter 12. Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. Disadvantages are.

of living in same house with a pair of lovers, a trying time for the English nation, a night search for the picturesque, homeless and houseless, Harris prepares to die, an angel comes along, effect of sudden joy on Harris, a little supper, lunch, high price for mustard, a fearful battle, maidenhead, sailing, three fishes, we are cursed. I was sitting on the bank, conjuring up this scene to myself, when George remarked that when I was quite rested, perhaps I would not mind helping to wash up, and thus recalled from the days of the glorious past to the prosaic present,

with all its misery and sin, I slid down into the boat and cleaned out the frying pan with a stick of wood and a tuft of grass, polishing it up finally with George's wet shirt. We went over to Magna Charter Island, and had a look at the stone, which stands in the cottage there, and on which the great charter is said to have been signed. Though as to whether it really was signed there, or as some say on the other bank at running mead,

I declined to commit myself. As far as my own personal opinion goes, however, I am inclined to give weight to the popular island theory. Certainly had I been one of the barons at the time, I should have strongly urged upon my comrades the advisability of our getting such a slippery customer as King John onto the island, where there was less chance of surprises and tricks. There are the ruins of an old priory in the grounds of Ankerwick House, which is close to picnic point, and it was round about the grounds of this old priory that Henry VIII is said to have waited for and met Anne Boleyn. He also used to meet her at Heaver Castle in Kent, and also somewhere near St. Orban's. It must have been difficult for the people of England in those days to have found

a spot where these thoughtless young folk were not spooning. Have you ever been in a house where there are a couple courting? It is most trying. You think you will go and sit in the drawing room, and you march off there. As you open the door, you hear a noise as if somebody had suddenly recollected something. And when you get in, Emily is over by the window, full of interest in the opposite side of the road. And your friend, John Edward, is at the other end of the room, with his whole soul held in thrall by photographs of other. people's relatives. Oh, you say, pausing at the door, I didn't know anybody was here.

Oh, didn't you? says Emily coldly, in a tone which implies that she does not believe you. You hang about for a bit, then you say, it's very dark, why don't you like the gas? John Edward says, oh, he hadn't noticed it. And Emily says that Papa does not like the gas lit in the afternoon. You tell them one or two items of news and give them your views and opinions on the Irish question, but this does not appear to interest them. All they remark on any subject is, oh, is it? Did he? Yes, and you don't say so. And after ten minutes of such style of conversation, you edge up to the door and slip out, and a surprise to find that the door immediately closes behind you and shuts itself without your having touched it.

Half an hour later, you think you will try a pipe in the conservatory. The only chair in the place is occupied by Emily, and John Edward, if the language of clothes, can be relied upon, has evidently been sitting on the floor. They do not speak, but they give you a look that says all that can be said in a civilised community, and you back out promptly and shut the door behind you. You are afraid to poke your nose into any room in the house now, so after walking up and down the stairs for a while, you go and sit in your own bedroom. this becomes uninteresting however after a time and so you put on your hat and stroll out into the garden you walk down the path and as you pass the summer-house you glance in and there are those two young idiots huddled up into one corner of it and they see you and are evidently under the idea that for some wicked purpose of your own you are following them about

Why don't they have a special room for this sort of thing and make people keep to it, you mutter, and you rush back to the hall and get your umbrella and go out. It must have been much like this when that foolish boy, Henry VIII, was courting his little Anne. People in Buckinghamshire would have come upon them unexpectedly when they were mooning around Windsor and Raysbury, and have exclaimed, Oh, you here! And Henry would have blushed and said, yes, he'd just come over to see a man. And Anne would have said, oh, I'm so glad to see you.

Isn't it funny? I've just met Mr. Henry the 8th in the lane, and he's going the same way I am. Then those people would have gone away and said to themselves, Oh, we'd better get out of here while this billing and cooing is going on. We'll go down to Kent. And they would go to Kent. And the first thing they would see in Kent, when they got there, would be Henry and Anne fooling around Heva Castle. Oh, drap this, they would have said. Here, let's go away. I can't stand any more of it. Let's go to St. Orban's. Nice quiet place, St. Orban's. and when they reached st albans there would be that wretched couple kissing under the abbey walls then these folks would go and be pirates until the marriage was over from picnic point to old windsor lock is a delightful bit of the river

a shady road dotted here and there with dainty little cottages runs by the bank up to the bells of oosley a picturesque in as most up river inns are and a place where a very good glass of ale may be drunk so harris says and on a matter of this kind you can take Harris's word. Old Windsor is a famous spot in its way. Edward the confessor had a palace here, and here the great Earl Godwin was proved guilty by the justice of that age of having encompassed the death of the king's brother. Earl Godwin broke a piece of bread and held it in his hand. If I am guilty, said the Earl, may this bread choke me when I eat it. Then he put the bread into his mouth and swallowed it, and it choked him, and he died. After you pass old Windsor, the river is somewhat uninteresting and does not become itself again until you are nearing Bovney. George and I towed up past the home park, which stretches along the right bank from Albert to Victoria Bridge.

And as we were passing Dachet, George asked me if I remembered our first trip up the river, and when we landed at Datchett at 10 o'clock at night and wanted to go to bed, I answer that I did remember it. It will be some time before I forget it. It was the Saturday before the August bank holiday. were tired and hungry, we same three, and when we got to datch it, we took out the hamper, the two bags and the rugs and coats and such-like things, and started off to look for diggings. We passed a very pretty little hotel with clematis and creeper over the port, but there was no honeysuckle about it, and for some reason or other I had got my mind fixed on honeysuckle,

and I said, oh, don't let's go in there, let's go on a bit further and see if there isn't one with honeysuckle over it. So we went on till we came to another hotel. that was a very nice hotel too and it had honeysuckle on it round at the side but harris did not like the look of a man who was leaning against the front door he said he didn't look a nice man at all and he wore ugly boots so we went on further we went a goodish way without coming across any more hotels and then we met a man and asked him to direct us to a few he said why you're coming away from them you must turn right round and go back and then you will come to the stag we said said, oh, we'd been there and we didn't like it. No honeysuckle over it. Well, then, he said there's the manor house just opposite. Have you tried that? Harris replied that we did not want to go there, didn't like the looks of a man who was stopping there. Harris did not like the colour of his hair, didn't like his boots either. Well, I don't know what you'll do, I'm sure, said our informant,

because they are the only two in the place. No other inns, exclaimed Harris. None, replied the man. What on earth are we to do? cried Harris. Then George spoke up. He said Harris and I could get an hotel built for us if we liked and have some people made to put in. But for his part he was going back to the stag. The greatest minds never realized their ideals in any matter, and Harris and I sighed over the hollowness of all earthly desires and followed George. We took our traps into the stag and laid them down in the hall. The landlord came up and said, good evening, gentlemen. Oh, good evening, said George, we want three beds, please. Very sorry, sir, said the landlord, but I'm afraid we can't manage it.

Oh, well, never mind, said George, two will do. Two of us can sleep in one bed, can't we? He continued, turning to Harris and me. Harris said, oh yes, he thought George and I could sleep in one bed very easily. Very sorry, sir, again repeated the landlord, but we really haven't got a bed vacant in the whole house. In fact, we are putting two and even three gentlemen in one bed as it is. This staggered us for a bit.

But Harris, who is an old traveller, rose to the occasion, and laughing cheerily, said, Oh, well, we can't help it. We must rough it. You must give us a shake-down in the billiard room. Very sorry, sir. Three gentlemen sleeping on the billiard table already, and two in the coffee-room. Can't possibly take you in tonight. We picked up our things and went over to the manor house.

It was a pretty little place. I said, I thought I should like it better than the other house, and Harris said, "'Oh, yes, it would be all right, "'and we needn't look at the man with the red hair. "'Besides, the poor fellow couldn't help having red hair. "'Harris spoke quite kindly and sensibly about it. "'The people at the manor house did not wait to hear us talk. "'The landlady met us on the doorstep

"'with the greeting that we were the 14th party "'she'd turned away within the last hour and a half. "'As for our meek suggestions of stables, "'billard room or coal-cellars, "'she laughed them all to scorn. "'All these nooks had been snatched up long ago. Did she know of any place in the whole village where we could get shelter for the night? Well, if we didn't mind roughing it, she didn't recommend it, mind, but there was a little beer shop half a mile down the Eton road.

We waited to hear no more. We caught up the hamper and the bags and the coats and rugs and parcels and ran. The distance seemed more like a mile than half a mile, but we reached the place at last and rushed panting into the bar. The people at the beer shop were rude. They merely loved. at us. There were only three beds in the whole house, and they had seven single gentlemen and two married couples sleeping there already. A kind-hearted bargeman, however, who happened to be in the tap room, thought we might try the grocer's next door to the stag, and we went back. The grocer's was full. An old woman we met in the shop then kindly took us along with her for a quarter of a while to a lady friend of hers, who occasionally met rooms to gentlemen. This old woman walked very

slowly, and we were 20 minutes getting to her lady friends. She enlivened the journey by describing to us as we trailed along the various pains she had in her back. Her lady friend's rooms were let. From there, we were recommended to number 27. Number 27 was full and sent us to number 32, and 32 was full. Then we went back into the high road, and Harris sat down on the hamper, and said he would go no further. He said it seemed a quiet spot and he would like to die there. He requested George and me to kiss his mother for him and to tell all his relations that he forgave them and died happy. At that moment an angel came by in the disguise of a small boy, and I cannot think of any more effective disguise an angel could have assumed, with a can of beer in one hand and in the other

something at the end of a string, which he let down onto every flat stone he came across and then pulled up again, this producing a peculiarly unattractive sound suggestive of suffering. We asked this heavenly messenger, as we discovered him afterwards to be, if he knew of any lonely house whose occupants were few and feeble, old ladies or paralyzed gentleman preferred, who could be easily frightened into giving up their beds for the night to three desperate men. Or, if not this, could he recommend us to an empty pig stye, or a disused lime kiln, or anything of that sort? He did not know of any such place, at least not one handy,

but he said that if we liked to come with him, his mother had a room to spare and could put us up for the night. We fell upon his neck there in the moonlight and blessed him, and it would have made a very beautiful picture if the boy himself had not been so overpowered by our emotion as to be unable to sustain himself under it and sunk to the ground, letting us all down on top of him. Harris was so overcome with joy that he fainted,

and had to see as the boy's beer can and half emptied before he could recover consciousness, and then he started off at a run, and left George and me to bring on the luggage. It was a little four-roomed cottage where the boy lived, and his mother, good soul, gave us hot bacon for supper, and we ate it all, five pounds, and a jam-tart afterwards, and two pots of tea, and then we went to bed. There were two beds in the room, one was a two-foot-six-inch truckle-bed, and George and I slept in that, and kept in by tying ourselves together with a sheet. And the other was the little boy's bed,

and Harris had that all to himself, and we found him in the morning with two feet of bare legs sticking out at the bottom, and George and I used it to hang the towels on while we bathed. We were not so uppish about what sort of hotel we would have next time we went to Dachard. To return to our present trip, nothing exciting happened, and we tugged steadily on to a little below Monkey Island where we drew up and lunched.

We tackled the cold beef for lunch, and then we found we had forgotten to bring any mustard. I don't think I ever in my life, before or since, felt I wanted mustard as badly as I felt I wanted it then. I don't care for mustard as a rule, and it is very seldom that I take it at all, but I would have given worlds for it then. I don't know how many worlds they may be in the universe, but anyone who had brought me a spoonful of mustard at that precise moment could have had them all. I grow reckless like that when I want a thing and can't get it. Harris said he would have given worlds for mustard too. It would have been a good thing for anybody who would come up to that spot with a can of mustard then. He would have been set up in worlds for the rest of his life.

But there, I dare say both Harris and I would have tried to back out of the bargain after we had got the mustard. One makes these extravagant offers in moments of excitement. But of course, when one comes to think of it, one sees how absurdly out of proportion they are with the value of the required article. I heard a man going up a mountain in Switzerland once say he would give worlds for a glass of beer, and when he came to a little shanty where they kept it, he kicked up a most fearful row because they charged him five francs for a bottle of bass. He said it was a scandalous imposition and he wrote to the times about it. It cast a gloom over the boat, there being no mustard. We ate our beef in silence. Existence seemed hollow and uninteresting. We thought of the

happy days of childhood and sighed. We brightened up a bit, however, over the apple tart, and when George drew out a tin of pineapple from the bottom of the hamper and rolled it into the middle of the boat, we felt that life was worth living after all. We are very fond of pineapple, all three of us. We looked at the picture on the tin. We thought of the juice. We smiled at one another, and Harris got a spoon ready. Then we looked for the knife to open the tin with. We turned out everything in the hamper. We turned out the bags. We pulled up the boards at the bottom of the boat. We took everything out onto the bank and shook it. There was no tin opener to be found. Then Harris tried to open the tin with a pocket knife and broke the knife and cut himself

badly. And George tried a pair of scissors, and the scissors flew up and nearly put his eye out. While they were dressing their wounds, I tried to make a hole in the thing with the spiky end of the hitcher, and the hitcher slipped and jerked me out between the boat and the bank into two feet of muddy water, and the tin rolled over uninjured and broke a teacup. Then we all got mad. We took that tin out on the bank, and Harris went up into a field and got a big, sharp stone, and I went back into the boat and brought out the mast. George held the tin, and Harris held the sharp end of his stone against the top of it, and I took the mast and poised it high up in the air, and gathered up all my strength and brought it down. It was George's straw hat that saved his life that day. He keeps

that hat now, what's left of it, and over winter's evening, when the pipes are lit and the boys are telling stretches about the dangers they have passed through, George brings it down and shows it round, and the stirring tale is told anew, with fresh exaggerations every time. Harris got off with merely a flesh wound. After that, I took the tin off myself and hammered at it with the mast till I was worn out and sick at heart, whereupon Harris took it in hand. We beat it out flat, we beat it back square. We batted it into every form known to geometry, but we could not make a hole in it. Then George went at it and knocked it into a shape so strange, so weird, so unearthly in its wild hideousness that he got frightened and threw away the mast. Then we all three sat round it on the grass

and looked at it. There was one great dent across the top that had the appearance of a mocking grin, and it drove us furious, so that Harris rushed at the thing and caught it up and flung it far into the middle of the river, and as it sank, we hurled our curses at it, and we got into the boat and rode away from the spot and never paused till we reached Maidenhead. Maidenhead itself is too snobby to be pleasant. It is the haunt of the river swell and his overdressed female companion. It is the town of showy hotels, patronised chiefly by dudes and ballet girls.

It is the witch's kitchen from which go forth those demons of the river steam launches. The London journal Duke always has his little place at Maidenhead, and the heroine of the three-volume novel always dines there when she goes out on the spree with somebody else's husband. We went through Maidenhead quickly, and then eased up and took leisurely that grand reach beyond Bolters and Cookham Locks. Clevedon Woods still wore their dainty dress of spring and rose up from the water edge in one long harmony of blended shades of fairy green. In its unbroken loveliness, this is perhaps the sweetest stretch of all the river, and lingeringly we slowly drew our little boat away from its

deep peace. We pulled up in the backwater just below Cuckham and had tea, and when we were through the lark it was evening. A stiffish breeze had sprung up, in our favour for a wonder, for as a rule on the river the wind is always dead against you whatever way you go. It is against you in the morning when you start for a day's trip, and you pull a long distance, thinking how easy it will be to come back with the sail. Then after tea, the wind veers round and you have to pull hard in its teeth all the way home. When you forget to take the sail at all, then the wind is consistently in your favour both ways. But there, this world is only a probation, and man was born to trouble as the sparks fly upward. This evening, however, they had evidently made a mistake and had put the wind round it off.

back instead of in our face. We kept very quiet about it and got the sail up quickly before they found it out. And then we spread ourselves about the boat in thoughtful attitudes, and the sail bellied out and strained and grumbled at the mast and the boat flew. I steered. There is no more thrilling sensation I know of than sailing. It comes as near to flying as man has got to yet, except in dreams. The wings of the rushing wind seem to be bearing you onward. know not where. You are no longer the slow, plodding, puny thing of clay, creeping tortuously upon the ground. You are a part of nature. Your heart is throbbing against hers, her glorious arms around you, raising you up against her heart. Your spirit is at one with hers. Your limbs grow light.

The voices of the air are singing to you. The earth seems far away and little, and the clouds so close above your head are brothers and you stretch your arms to them. We had the river to ourselves, except that far in the distance, we could see a fishing punt, moored in midstream, on which three fishermen sat, and we skimmed over the water and passed the wooded banks, and no one spoke. I was steering. As we drew nearer, we could see that the three men fishing seemed old and solemn-looking men. They sat on three chairs in the punt and watched intently their lines. And the red sunset threw a mystic light upon the waters, and tinged with fire the towering woods, and made a golden glory of the piled up clouds. It was an hour of deep

enchantment, of ecstatic hope and longing. The little sails stood out against the purple sky, the gloaming lay around us, wrapping the world in rainbow shadows, and behind us crept the night. We seemed like nights of some old legend, sailing across. some mystic lake into the unknown realm of twilight, unto the great land of the sunset. We did not go into the realm of twilight. We went slap into that punt where those three old men were fishing. We did not know what had happened at first because the sail shut out the view, but from the nature of the language that rose up upon the evening air, we gathered that we had come into the neighbourhood of human beings and that they were vexed and discontented.

Harris let the sail down and then we saw what had happened. We had knocked those three old gentlemen off their chairs into a general heap at the bottom of the boat, and they were now slowly and painfully sorting themselves out from each other and picking fish off themselves. And as they worked, they cursed us, not with a common cursory curse, but with long, carefully thought out, comprehensive curses that embraced the whole of our career and went away into the distant future and included all of our own. our relations and covered everything connected with us, good, substantial curses. Harris told them they ought to be grateful for a little excitement, sitting there fishing all day,

and he also said that he was shocked and grieved to hear men their age give way to temper so, but it did not do any good. George said he would steer after that. He said a mind like mine ought not to be expected to give itself away in steering boats. Better let a mere commonplace human being see after that boat before we jolly well all got drowned. And he took the lines and brought us up to Marlowe. And at Marlowe we left the boat by the bridge and went and put up for the night at the crown. End of chapter 12. Chapter 13 of Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. Marlowe is one of the pleasantest river centres I know of. It is a bustling, lively little town. Not very picturesque on the whole, it is true, but there are many quaint nooks and

corners to be found in it, nevertheless. Standing arches in the shattered bridge of time, over which our fancy travels back to the days when Marlow Manor owned Sax and Algar for its lord. Air Conquering William seized it to give to Queen Matilda, ere it passed to the earls of Warwick or to worldly wide Lord Padgett, the counsellor of four successive sovereigns. There is lovely country round about it, too, if after boating you are fond of a walk, while the river itself is at its best here. Down to Cookham, past the quarry woods and the meadows, is a lovely reach. Dear old quarry woods, with your narrow climbing paths and little winding glades. How scented to this hour you seem with memories of

sunny summer days! How haunted are your shadowy vistas with the ghosts of laughing faces? How from your whispering leaves there softly fall the voices of long ago. From Marlow up to sonning is even fairy yet. Grand old Bisham Abbey, whose stone walls have rung to the shouts of the knights' Templars, and which at one time was the home of Anne of Cleaves, and at another of Queen Elizabeth, is passed on the right bank just half a mile above Marlow Bridge. Bisham Abbey is rich in melodramatic properties. It contains a tapestry bedchamber, and a secret room hid high up in the thick walls. The ghost of the Lady Holy, who beat a little boy to death, still walks there at night, trying to wash its ghostly hands clean in a ghostly basin.

Warwick, the kingmaker, rests there, careless now about such trivial things as earthly kings and earthly kingdoms, and Salisbury, who did conservis at Poitiers. Just before you come to the abbey, and right on the river's bank, is Bisham Church, and perhaps if any tombs are worth inspecting, there are the tombs and monuments in Bisham Church. It was while floating in his boat under the Bisham beaches

that Shelley, who was then living at Marlowe, you can see his house now in West Street composed the revolt of Islam. By Hurley Weir, a little higher up, I have often thought that I could stay a month without having sufficient time to drink in all the beauty of the scene. The village of Hurley, five minutes walk from the lock, is as old a little spot as there is on the river, dating as it does, to quote the quaint phraseology of those dim days,

from the times of King Seaburton King Offer. Just past the Weir, going up, is Dane's field, where the invading Danes once encamped during their march to Gloucestershire, and a little further still, nestling by a sweet corner of the stream, is what is left of Medmanum Abbey. The famous Medmanam monks, or Hellfire Club, as they were commonly called, and of whom the notorious Wilkes was a member, were a fraternity, whose motto was, do as you please,

and that invitation still stands over the ruined doorway of the abbey. Many years before this bogus abbey, with its congregation of irreverent jesters, was founded, there stood upon this same spot a monastery of a sterner kind, whose monks were of a somewhat different type to the revellers that were to follow them, five hundred years afterwards. The Cistercian monks, whose Abbey stood there in the 13th century, wore no clothes but rough tunics and cowls, and ate no flesh, nor fish, nor eggs. They lay upon straw, and they rose at midnight to mass.

They spent the day in labour, reading and prayer, and over all their lives their fell a silence as of death, for no one spoke. A grim fraternity, passing grim lives in that sweet spot that God had made so bright. Strange that nature's voices all around them, the soft singing of the waters, the whisperings of the river-grass, the music of the rushing wind, should not have taught them a truer meaning of life than this. They listened there, through the long days, in silence, waiting for a voice from heaven, and all day long and through the solemn night it spoke to them in myriad tones. And they heard it not. From Medmanham to sweet Hambledon lock, the river is full of peaceful beauty,

but after it passes Greenlands, the rather uninteresting-looking river-residents of my news-agent, a quiet, unassuming old gentleman, who may often be met with about these regions during the summer months, sculling himself along in easy vigorous style, or chatting genially to some old lock-keeper as he passes through, until well the other side of Henley, it is somewhat bare and dull. We got up tolerably early on the Monday morning at Marlowe and went for a bathe before breakfast, and coming back Montmorency made an awful ass of himself. The only subject on which Montmorency and I have any serious difference of opinion is cats. I like cats. Montmorency does not.

When I meet a cat I say, poor pussy, and stop down and tickle the side of its head, and the cat sticks up its tail in a rigid cast-iron manner, arches its back, and wipes its nose up against my trousers, and all his gentleness and peace. When Montmorency meets a cat, the whole street knows about it, and there is enough bad language wasted in ten seconds to last an ordinarily respectable man all his life, with care. I do not blame the dog, contenting myself as a rule with merely clouting his head or throwing stones at him, because I take it that it is his nature. Fox terriers are born with about four times as much original sin in them as other dogs are,

and it will take years and years of patient effort on the part of us Christians to bring about any appreciable reformation in the roundiness of the fox terrier nature. I remember being in the lobby of the haymarket stores one day, and all around me were dogs, waiting for the return of their owners, who were shopping inside. There were a mastiff and one or two collies, and a St Bernard, a few retrievers and Newfoundlands, a boor-hound, a boor-hound, a French poodle,

with plenty of hair round his head, but mangy around the middle, a bulldog, a few lather arcade sort of animals about the size of rats, and a couple of Yorkshire tykes. There they sat, patient, good and thoughtful. A solemn peacefulness seemed to rain in that lobby. An air of calmness and resignation, of gentle sadness pervaded the room. Then a sweet young lady entered, leading a meek-looking little fox-terrier, and left him chained up there between the bull-dog and the poodle. He sat and looked about him for a minute.

Then he cast his eyes up to the ceiling, and seemed, judging from his expression, to be thinking of his mother. Then he yawned. Then he looked round at the other dogs, all silent, grave, and dignified. He looked at the bull-dog, sleeping dreamlessly on his right. He looked at the poodle, erect and haughty, on his left. Then, without a word of warning, without the shadow of a provocation, he bit the poodle's near foreleg, and a yelp of agony ran through the quiet shades of that lobby. The result of his first experiment seemed highly satisfactory to him,

and he determined to go on and make things lively all round. He sprang over the poodle and vigorously attacked a collie, and the collie woke up, and immediately commenced a fierce and noisy contest with the poodle. Then Foxy came back to his own place, and caught the bulldog by the ear, and tried to throw him away. And the bulldog, a curiously impartial animal, went for everything he could reach, including the hall porter, which gave that dear little terrier the opportunity to enjoy an uninterrupted fight of his own

with an equally willing Yorkshire tyke. Anyone who knows canine nature need hardly be told that, by this time, all the other dogs in the place were fighting as if their hearths and homes depended on the fray. The big dogs fought each other indiscriminately, and the little dogs fought among themselves, and filled up their spare time by biting the legs of the big dogs. The whole lobby was a perfect pandemonium, and the din was terrific. A crowd assembled in the haymarket, and asked if it was a vestry meeting, or if not,

who was being murdered and why. Men came with poles and ropes, and tried to separate the dogs, and the police were sent for. And in the midst of the riot, that sweet young lady returned, and snatched up that sweet little dog of hers, he had laid the tyke up for a month, and had on the expression now of a newborn lamb, into her arms, and kissed him, and asked him if he was killed, and what those great nasty brutes of dogs have been doing to him, and he nestled up against her and gazed up into her face with a look that seemed to say,

Oh, I'm so glad you've come to take me away from this disgraceful scene. She said that the people at the stores had no right to allow great savage things like those other dogs to be put with respectable people's dogs, and that she had a great mind to summon somebody. Such is the nature of fox terriers, and therefore I do not blame Montmorency for his tendency to row with cats, but he wished he had not given way to it that morning. We were, as I have said, returning from a dip, and halfway up the high street a cat darted out from one of the houses in front of us, and began to trot across the road. Montmorenci gave a cry of joy, the cry of a stern warrior who sees his enemy given over to his hands, the sort of cry Cromwell might have offered when the Scots came down the hill, and flew after his prey. His victim was a large black tom.

I never saw a larger cat, nor a more disreputable-looking cat. cat. It had lost half its tail, one of its ears, and a fairly appreciable proportion of its nose. It was a long, sinewy-looking animal. It had a calm, contented air about it. Montmorency went for that poor cat at the rate of twenty miles an hour, but the cat did not hurry up, did not seem to have grasped the idea that its life was in danger. It trotted quietly on until its would-be assassin was within a yard of it, and then it turned round and sat down in the middle of the road and looked at Montmorency with a gentle inquiring expression that said, Yes, you want me?

Montmorency does not lack pluck, but there was something about the look of that cat that might have chilled the heart of the boldest dog. He stopped abruptly and looked at Tom. Neither spoke, but the conversation that one can imagine was clearly as follows. The cat, Can I do anything for you? Montmorency. No, no, thanks. The cat. Don't you mind speaking?

If you really want anything, you know. Montmorency, backing down the high street. Oh, no, not at all. Certainly, don't you trouble, I'm afraid I'm in a mistake. I thought I knew you. Sorry I disturbed you. The cat. Not at all, quite a pleasure.

Sure you don't want anything now? Montmorency, still backing. No, not at all. Thanks, not at all. Very kind of you. Good morning. The cat. Good morning. Then the cat rose and continued his trot, and Montmorency, fitting what he calls his tail, carefully into its groove, came back to us, and took up an unimportant position in the rear. To this day, if you say the word cats to Montmorency, he will visibly shrink and look up piteously as if to say, please don't. We did our marketing after breakfast, and re-victueled the boat for three days. George said we ought to take vegetables, that it was unhealthy not to eat vegetables.

He said they were easier enough to cook, and that he would see to that, so we got ten pounds of potatoes, a bushel of peas, and a few cabbages. We got a beefsteak pie, a couple of gooseberry tarts, and a leg of mutton from the hotel, and fruits and cakes and bread and butter and jam and bacon and eggs, and other things we foraged round about the town for. Our departure from Marlowe, I regard as one of our greatest successes, it was dignified and impressive, without being ostentatious. We had insisted at all the shops we had been to that the things should be sent with us then and there. None of your yes, sir, I will send them off at once.

The boy will be down there before you are, sir, and then fooling about on the landing stage, and going back to the shop twice to have a row about them for us. We waited while the basket was packed, and took the boy with us. We went to a good many shops, adopting this principle at each one, and the consequence was that by the time we had finished,

we had a fine collection of boys with bars, getting us around as heart could desire, and our final march down the middle of the high street to the river must have been as imposing a spectacle as Marlow had seen for many a long day. The order of the press session was as follows. Montmorency carrying a stick, two disreputable looking curs, friends of Montmorences, George carrying coats and rugs, and smoking a short pipe, Harris, trying to walk with easy grace while carrying a bulged-out Gladstone bag in one hand and a bottle of lime juice in the other, Greengrocer's boy and baker's boy with baskets, boots from the hotel carrying hamper, confectioner's boy with basket, grosser's boy with basket, long-haired

dog, cheesemonger's boy with a basket, odd man carrying a bag, bosom companion of odd man with his hands in his pockets, smoking a short clay, fruiter as boy, with basket, myself carrying three hats and a pair of boots, and trying to look as if I didn't know it, six small boys and four stray dogs. When we got down to the landing stage, the boatman said, Let me see, sir, was yours a steam launch or a houseboat? On our informing him it was a double-sculling skiff. He seemed surprised. We had a good deal of trouble with steam launches that morning. It was just before the Henley week, and they were going up in large numbers, some by themselves, some towing houseboats. I do hate steam launches. I suppose every rowing man does. I never see a

steam launch, but I feel I should like to lure it to a lonely part of the river, and there, in the silence and the solitude, strangle it. There is a blatant bumpuousness about a steam launch that has the knack of rousing every evil instinct in my nature, and I yearn for the good old days when you could go about and tell people what you thought of them with a hatchet and a bow and arrows. The expression on the face of the man who, with his hands in his pockets, stands by the stern, smoking a cigar, is sufficient to excuse a breach of the peace by itself, and the lordly whistle for you to get out of the way would, I am confident, ensure a verdict of justifiable homicide from any jury of Riverman. They used to have to whistle for us to get out of their way.

If I may do so, without appearing boastful, I think I can honestly say that our one small boat, during that week, caused more annoyance and delay and aggravation to the way. steam launches that we came across than all the other craft on the river put together. Steam launch coming, one of us would cry out on sighting the enemy in the distance, and in an instant everything was got ready to receive her. I would take the lines, and Harris and George would sit down beside me, all of us with our backs to the launch, and the boat would drift out quietly into midstream. On would come the launch, whistling, and on we would go, drifting. At about a hundred yards off, she would start whistling,

like mad, and the people would come and lean over the side and roar at us, but we never heard them. Harris would be telling us an anecdote about his mother, and George and I would not have missed a word of it for worlds. Then that launch would give one final shriek of a whistle that would nearly burst the boiler, and she would reverse her engines and blow off steam and swing round and get a ground. Everybody on board of it would rush to the bow and yell at us, and the people on the bank would stand and shout to us, and all the other passing boats would stop and join in, till the whole river from miles up and down, was in a state of frantic commotion. And then Harris would break off in the most interesting part of his narrative, and look up with

mild surprise, and say to George, why, George, bless me, if here isn't a steam-launch, and George would answer, well, do you know, I thought I heard something, upon which he would get nervous and confused, and not know how to get the boat out of the way, and the people in the launch would crowd round and instruct us. Pull your right, you, you idiot, back with your left. No, not you, the other one. Leave the lines alone, can't you? Now, both together.

Not that way, oh, you. Then they would lower a boat and come to our assistance, and after a quarter of an hour's efforts, would get us clean out of their way so that they could go on, and we would thank them so much and ask them to give us a toe, but they never would. Another good way we discovered of irritating the aristocratic type of state, steam launch, was to mistake them for a bean feast, and ask them if they were Messrs.

Cubitz lot or the Bermansy good templars, and could they lend us a saucepan? Old ladies, not accustomed to the river, are always intensely nervous of steam launches. I remember going up once from Staines to Windsor, a stretch of water particularly rich in these mechanical monstrosities, with a party containing three ladies of this description. It was very exciting. At the first glimpse of every steam launch that came in view, They insisted on landing and sitting down on the bank until it was out of sight again. They said they were very sorry, but that they owed it to their families not to be fool-hearty. We found ourselves short of water at Hambledon Lock, so we took our jar and went up to the lock-keeper's house to beg for some.

George was our spokesman. He put on a winning smile and said, Oh, please, could you spare us a little water? Certainly, replied the old gentleman. Take as much as you want, and leave the rest. "'Thank you so much,' murmured George, looking about him. "'Where, where do you keep it?' "'It's always in the same place, my boy,' was the stolid reply, "'just behind you.'

"'I don't see it,' said George, turning round. "'Why, bless you, where's your eyes?' was the man's comment, as he twisted George round and pointed up and down the stream. "'There's enough of it to see it there.' "'Oh!' he exclaimed George, grasping the idea, "'but we can't drink the river, you know.' "'No, but you can drink some of it,' replied the old. fellow, is what I've drunk for the last 15 years. George told him that his appearance, after the course,

did not seem a sufficiently good advertisement for the brand, and that he would prefer it out of a pump. We got some from a cottage a little higher up. I dare say that was only river water, if we had known, but we did not know so it was all right. What the eye does not see, the stomach does not get upset over. We tried river water once later on in the season, but it was not a success. We were coming downstream and had pulled up to have tea in a backwater near Windsor. Our jar was empty, and it was a case of going without our tea or taking water from the river. Harris was for chancing it. He said it must be all right if we boiled the water.

He said that the various germs of poison present in the water would be killed by the boiling. So we filled our kettle with Thames backwater, and boiled it, and very careful we were to see that it did boil. We had made the tea, and were just settling down comfortably to drink it, when George, with his cup halfway to his lip, paused and exclaimed, What's that? What's what? asked Harris and I. Why that? said George, looking westward.

Harris and I followed his gaze and saw, coming down towards us on the sluggish current, a dog. It was one of the quietest and peacefulest dogs I have ever seen. I never met a dog who seemed more contented, more easy in its mind. It was floating dreamily on its back, with its four legs stuck. up straight into the air, it was what I should call a full-bodied dog with a well-developed chest. On he came, serene, dignified and calm, until he was abreast of our boat, and there among the rushes he eased up and settled down cozily for the evening. George said he didn't want any tea,

and emptied his cup into the water. Harris didn't feel thirsty either, and followed suit. I had drunk half mine, but I wish I had not. I asked George if he thought I was like to have typhoid. He said, oh no, he thought I had a very good chance indeed of escaping it. Anyhow, I should know in about a fortnight, whether I had or had not. We went up the backwater to Wargrove. It is a short cut, leading out of the right-hand bank about half a mile above marsh lock, and is well worth taking, being a pretty shady little piece of stream, besides saving nearly half a mile of distance. Of course, its entrance is studied with posts and chains, and surrounded by notice boards,

menacing all kinds of torture, imprisonment and death to everyone who dares set skull upon its waters. I wonder some of these riparian bores don't claim the air of the river and threaten everyone with forty shillings fine who breathes it. But the posts and chains a little skill will easily avoid, and as for the boards, you might, if you have five minutes to spare, and there is nobody about, take one or two of them down and throw them into the river. Halfway up the backwater, we got out and lunched, and it was during this lunch that George and I received rather a try and, shock. Harris received a shock too, but I do not think Harris's shock could have been anything like so bad as the shock that George and I had over the business. You see, it was in this way. We were sitting in a meadow about ten yards from the water's edge, and we had just settled

down comfortably to feed. Harris had the beefsteak pie between his knees, and was carving it, and George and I were waiting with our plates ready. Have you got a spoon there? says Harris. I want a spoon to help the gravy with. The hamper was close behind us, and George and I both turned round to reach one out. We were not five seconds getting it. When we looked round again, Harris and the pie were gone. It was a wide, open field. There was not a tree or a bit of hedge for hundreds of yards.

He could not have tumbled into the river, because we were on the water-side of him, and he would have had to climb over us to do it. George and I gazed all about. Then we gazed at each other. "'Has he been snatched up to heaven?' I queried. "'It hardly have taken the pie, too,' said George. "'There seemed weight in this objection, and we discarded the heavenly theory.

"'I suppose the truth of the matter is,' suggested George, "'descending to the commonplace and practicable, "'that there has been an earthquake.' "'And then he added, with a touch of sadness in his voice, "'I wish he hadn't been carving that pie.' "'With a sigh we turned our eyes once more towards the spot, where Harris and the pie had last been seen on earth, and there, as our blood froze in our veins and our hair stood up on end,

we saw Harris's head, and nothing but his head, sticking bolt upright among the tall grass, his face very red and bearing upon it an expression of great indignation. George was the first to recover. Speak, he cried, and tell us whether you are alive or dead, and where is the rest of you? Oh, don't be a stupid ass, said Harris's head. I believe you did it on purpose.

purpose. "'Did what?' exclaimed George and I. "'Why, put me to sit here. Darn, silly trick. Here, catch hold of the pie.' And out of the middle of the earth, as it seemed to us, rose the pie, very much mixed up and damaged, and after it scrambled Harris, tumbled, grubby, and wet. He had been sitting, without knowing it, on the very verge of a small gully, the long grass hiding it from view, and in leaning a little back he had shot over, pie and all. He said he had never felt so surprised in all his life as when he first felt himself going without being able to conjecture in the slightest what had happened. He thought at first that the end of the world had come.

Harris believed to this day that George and I planned it all beforehand. Thus does an unjust suspicion follow even the most blameless for, as the poet says, who shall escape calumny? Who indeed? End of Chapter 13. Recording by Adrian Weal Chapter 14 of Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome. This Librevox recording is in the public domain.

We caught a breeze after lunch which took us gently up past Wargrave and Ship Lake. Mellowed in the drowsy sunlight of a summer as afternoon, Wargrave, nestling where the river bends, makes a sweet old picture as you pass it, and one that lingers long upon the retina of memory. The Georgian dragon at Wargrave boasts a sign painted on the one side by Leslie, R.A., and on the other by Hodgson of that ilk. Leslie has depicted the fight. Hodgson has imagined the scene after the fight, George, the work done, enjoying his pint of beer. Day, the author of Sandford and Merton, lived, and more credit to the place still,

was killed at Wargrave. In the church is a memorial to Mrs. Sarah Hill, who bequeathed one pound annually to be divided at Easter between two boys and two girls who have never been undutiful to their parents, who have never been known to swear or to tell untruths, to steal or to break windows. Fancy giving all that up for five shillings a year. It's not worth it. It is rumoured in the town that once, many years ago, a boy appeared who really never had done these things, or at all events, which was all that was required or could be expected, had never been known to do them, and thus won the crown of glory.

He was exhibited for three weeks afterwards in the town hall, under a glass case. What has become of the money since no one knows? They say it has always handed over to the nearest waxworks show. Ship Lake is a pretty village, but it cannot be seen from the river being upon the hill. Tennyson was married in Ship Lake Church. The river up to Sonning winds in and out through many islands and is very placid, hushed and lonely. Few folk, except at Twilight, a pair or two of rustic lovers, walk along its banks.

Ari and Lord Fitznoodle have been left behind at Henley, and dismal, dirty, Reading, is not yet reached. It is a part of the river in which to dream of bygone days, and vanished forms and faces, and things that might have been, but are not, confound them. We got out at Sonning, and went for a walk round the village. It is the most fairy-like little nook on the whole river. It is more like a stage village than one built of bricks and mortar. Every house is smothered in roses, and now, in early June, they were bursting forth in clouds of dainty splendour. If you stop at sonning, put up at the bull behind the church.

It is a veritable picture of an old country inn, with green square courtyard in front, where, on seats beneath the trees, the old men group of an evening, to drink their ale and gossip over village politics. with low, quaint rooms and lattice windows, and awkward stairs and winding passages. We roamed about sweet-soning for an hour or so, and then, it being too late to push on past Reading, we decided to go back to one of the Ship Lake Islands and put up there for the night. It was still early when we got settled, and George said that, as we had plenty of time, it would be a splendid opportunity to try good slap-up supper. He said he would show us what could be done up the river in the way of cooking,

and suggested that with the vegetables and the remains of the cold beef and general odds and ends, we should make an Irish stew. It seemed a fascinating idea. George gathered wood and made a fire, and Harris and I started to peel the potatoes. I should never have thought that peeling potatoes was such an undertaking. The job turned out to be the biggest thing of its kind that I have ever been in. We began cheerfully, one might almost say skittishly, but our light-heartedness was gone by the time the first potato was finished. The more we peeled, the more peel there seemed to be left on. By the time we'd got all the peel off and all the eyes out,

there was no potato left, at least none worth speaking of. George came and had to look at it. It was about the size of a peanut. He said, oh, that won't do, you're wasting them. You must scrape them. So we scraped them, and that was harder work than peeling. They're such an extraordinary shape, potatoes, all bumps and warts and hollows. We worked steadily for five and twenty minutes,

and did four potatoes. Then we struck, we said we should require the rest of the evening for scraping ourselves. I never saw such a thing as potato scraping for making a fellow in a mess. It seemed difficult to believe that the potato scrapings, in which Harris and I stood, half-smothered, could have come off four potatoes. It shows you what can be done with economy and care. George said it was absurd to have only four potatoes in an Irish stew, so we washed half a dozen or so more and put them in with our peeling. We also put in a cabbage and about half a peck of peas. George stirred it all up, and then he said there seemed to be a lot of room to spare. So we overhauled both the hampers and picked out all the odds and ends and the remnants and added them to the stew. There were

half a pork pie and a bit of cold-boiled bacon left, and we put them in. Then George found half a tin of potted salmon, and he emptied that into the pot. He said that was the advantage of Irish stew. You got rid of such a lot of things. I fished out a couple of eggs that had got cracked and put those in. George said they would thicken the gravy. I forget the other ingredients, but I know nothing was wasted, and I remember that towards the end, Montmorency, who had evinced great interest in the proceedings throughout, strolled away with an earnest and thoughtful air, reappearing a few minutes afterwards, with a dead water rat in his mouth, which he evidently wished to present as his contribution to the dinner. Whether in a sarcastic spirit, or with a genuine desire

to assist. I cannot say. We had a discussion as to whether the rat should go in or not. Harris said he thought it would be all right, mixed up with the other things, and that every little helped. But George stood up for precedent. He said he had never heard of water rats in Irish stew, and he would rather be on the safe side and not try experiments. Harris said, if you never try a new thing, how can you tell what it's like? It's men such as you that hamper the world's progress. Think of a man who first tried German sausage. it was a great success of that irish stew i don't think i ever enjoyed a meal more there was something so fresh and piquant about it once palate gets so tired of the old hackneyed things here was a dish with a new flavour with a taste like nothing else on earth and it was nourishing too as george said there was good stuff in it the peas and potatoes might have been a bit softer but we all had good teeth so that did not matter much and as for the gravy it was good stuff in it was good peas and potatoes it was a bit softer but we all had good teeth so that did not matter much and as for the gravy it was

was a poem, a little too rich perhaps for a weak stomach, but nutritious. We finished up with tea and cherry tart. Montmorency had a fight with a kettle during teen time and came off a poor second. Throughout the trip he had manifested great curiosity concerning the kettle. He would sit and watch it as it boiled with a puzzled expression and would try and rouse it every now and then by growling at it. When it began to splutter and steam, he regarded us as a challenge and would want to fight it, only at that precise moment someone would always dash up and bear off his prey before he could get at it. Today, he determined he would be beforehand. At the first sound the kettle made, he rose, growling, and advanced towards it in a threatening attitude.

It was only a little kettle, but it was full of pluck and it up and spit at him. Oh, would you? growled Montmorency, showing his teeth. I'll teach you to cheek a hard-working, respectable dog, immisurable, long-nosed, dirty-looking scoundrel ye. Come on! on, and he rushed at that poor little kettle, and seized it by the spout. Then, across the evening stillness, broke a blood-curdling yelp, and Montmorency left the boat and did a constitutional three times round the island at the rate of 35 miles an hour, stopping every now and then to bury his nose in a bit of cool mud. From that day Montmorency regarded the kettle with a mixture of awe, suspicion and hate.

Whenever he saw it he would growl and back at a rapid rate with his tail shut down and the moment it was put upon the stove he would promptly climb out of the boat and sit on the bank till the whole tea business was over George got out his banjo after supper and wanted to play it but Harry subjected he said he had got a headache and did not feel strong enough to stand it George thought the music might do him good said music often soothed the nerves and took away a headache and he twanged two or three notes just to show Harris what it was like.

Harris said he'd rather have the headache. George has never learned to play the banjo to this day. He has had too much all-round discouragement to meet. He tried on two or three evenings, while we were up the river to get a little practice, but it was never a success. Harris's language used to be enough to unnerve any man, added to which Montmorency would sit and howl steadily

right through the performance. It was not giving the man a fair chance. "'What's you want to howl like that for when I'm playing?' George would exclaim indignantly, while taking aim at him with a boot. "'What do you want to play like that for when he is howling?' Harris would retort, catching the boot. "'You let him alone. He can't help howling. He's got a musical ear, and your playing makes him howl.'

So George determined to postpone study of the banjo until he reached home, but he did not get much opportunity even there. Mrs. P. used to come up and say she was very sorry, for herself she liked to hear him, but the lady upstairs was in a very delicate state, and the doctor was afraid it might injure the child. Then George tried taking it out with him late at night, and practising round the square,

but the inhabitants complained to the police about it, and a watch was set for him one night, and he was captured. The evidence against him was very clear, and he was bound over to keep the peace for six months. He seemed to lose heart in the business after that. He did make one or two feeble efforts to take up the work again when the six months had elapsed, but there was always the same coldness, the same want of sympathy on the part of the world to fight against,

and after a while he despaired altogether, and advertised the instrument for sale at a great sacrifice, owner having no further use for same, and took to learning card tricks instead. It must be disheartening work learning a musical instrument. You would think that society, for its own sake, would do all it could to assist a man to acquire the art of playing a musical instrument, but it doesn't. I knew a young fellow once who was studying to play the bagpipes, and you'd be surprised at the amount of opposition he had to contend with. Why, not even from the members of his own family,

did he receive what you would call active encouragement? His father was dead against the business from the beginning, and spoke quite unfeelingly on the subject. My friend used to get up early in the morning to practice, but he had to give that plan up because of his sister. She was somewhat religiously inclined, and she said it seemed such an awful thing to begin the day like that. So he sat up at night instead and played after the family had gone to bed,

but that did not do as it got their house such a bad name. People, going home late, would stop outside to listen, and then put it about all over the town the next morning, that a fearful murder had been committed at Mr. Jefferson's night before and would describe how they'd heard the victim's shrieks and the brutal oaths and curses of the murderer, followed by the prayer for mercy and the last dying gurgle of the corpse. So they let him practice in the daytime, in the back kitchen with all the doors shut.

But his more successful passages could generally be heard in the sitting-room, in spite of these precautions, and would affect his mother almost to tears. She said it put her in mind of her poor father. He had been swallowed by a shark, poor man, while bathing off the coast of New Guinea. Where the connection came in, she could not explain. Then they knocked up a little place for him at the bottom of the garden, about a quarter of a mile from the house, and made him take the machine down there when he wanted to work it, and sometimes a visitor would come to the house who knew nothing of the matter,

and they would forget to tell him all about it and caution him, and he would go out for a stroll round the garden, and suddenly get within earshot of those bagpipes, without being prepared for it, or knowing what it was. If he were a man of strong mind, it only gave him fits, but a person of mere average intellect it usually sent mad. There is, it must be confessed, something very sad about the early efforts of an amateur in bagpipes. I have felt that myself when listening to my young friend. They appear to be a trying instrument to perform upon.

You have to get enough breath for the whole tune before you start, at least so I gathered from watching Jefferson. He would begin magnificently with a wild, full, come-to-the-battle sort of note, that quite roused you. But he would get more and more piano as he went on, and the last verse generally collapsed in the middle with a splutter and a hiss. You want to be in good health to play the bagpipes.

Young Jefferson only learnt to play one tune on those bagpipes, but I never heard any complaints about the insufficiency of his repertoire, none whatever. The tune was, the Campbell's are coming. Hooray, hooray, so he said, though his father always held that it was the blue bell. of Scotland. Nobody seemed quite sure what it was exactly, but they all agreed that it sounded scotch. Strangers were allowed three guesses, and most of them guessed a different tune each time. Harris was disagreeable after supper. I think it must have been the stew that had upset him. He is

not used to high living. So George and I left him in the boat and settled to go for a mooch round Henley. He said he should have a glass of whiskey and a pipe and fix things up for the night. We were to shout when we returned, and he would row over from the island and fetch us. Don't go to sleep, old man, we said as we started. Not much fear of this while this stew's on, he grunted, as he pulled back to the island. Henley was getting ready for the regatta, and was full of bustle. We met a goodish number of men we knew about the town, and in their pleasant company, the time slipped by somewhat quickly.

So it was nearly at an o'clock before we set off on our four-mile walk home, as we had learned to call our little craft by this time. It was a dismal night, coldish, with a thin rain falling, and as we trudged through the dark, silent fields, talking low to each other, and wondering if we were going right or not, we thought of the cosy boat, with the bright light streaming through the tight-drawn canvas, of Harris and Montmorency, and the whiskey, and wished that we were there. We conjured up the picture of ourselves inside, tired and a little hungry, of the gloomy river and the shapeless trees, and, like a giant glow-worm underneath them,

our dear old boat, so snug and warm and cheerful. We could see ourselves at supper there, pecking away at cold meat, and passing each other chunks of bread. We could hear the cheery clatter of our knives, the laughing voices filling all the space, and overflowing through the opening out into the night, and we hurried on to realise the vision.

We struck the tow-path at length, and that made us happy, because prior to this we had not been sure whether we were walking towards the river or away from it, and when you were tired and want to go to bed, uncertainties like that, worry you. We passed Skip Lake as the clock was striking the quarter to twelve, and then George said, thoughtfully, you don't happen to remember which of the islands it was, do you? No, I replied, beginning to grow thoughtful too. I don't. How many are there? Only four, answered George.

It will be all right if he's awake. And if not, I queried, but we dismissed that train of thought. We shouted when we came opposite the first island, but there was no response, so we went to the second and tried there and obtained the same result. Oh, I remember now, said George, it was the third one. And we ran on hopefully to the third one, and hallowed. No answer. The case was becoming serious.

It was now past midnight The hotels at Skip Lake and Henley would be crammed And we could not go around knocking up cottages and householders In the middle of the night To know if they let apartments George suggested walking back to Henley

And assaulting a policeman And so getting a night's lodging in the station house But then there was the thought Suppose he only hits us back And refuses to lock us up We could not pass the whole night Fighting policemen Besides, we didn't want to overdo the thing

And get six months We despairingly tried what seemed in the darkness to be the fourth island, but met with no better success. The rain was coming down fast now, and evidently meant to last. We were wet to the skin, and cold and miserable. We began to wonder whether there were only four islands or more, or whether we were near the islands at all, or whether we were anywhere within a mile of where we ought to be, or in the wrong part of the river altogether. Everything looks so strange and different in the darkness. We began to understand the sufferings of the babes in the wood.

"'Just when we had given up all hope—' "'Yes, I know that is always the time "'that things do happen in novels and tales, "'but I can't help it. "'I resolved when I began to write this book "'that I would be strictly truthful in all things, "'and so I will be, "'even if I have to employ hackneyed phrases for the purpose.

"'It was just when we had given up all hope, "'and I must therefore say so. "'Just when we had given up all hope, "'then I suddenly caught sight, "'a little way below us, "'of a strange, weird sort of glimmer, flickering among the trees on the opposite bank. For an instant I thought of ghosts.

It was such a shadowy, mysterious light. The next moment it flashed across me that it was our boat, and I sent up such a yell across the water that made the night seem to shake in its bed. We waited breathless for a minute, and then, oh, divinest music of the darkness, we heard the answering bark of Montmorency. We shouted back loud enough to wake

the seven sleepers. I never could understand myself why it should take more noise to wake seven sleepers than one, and after what seemed an hour, but what was really, I suppose, about five minutes, we saw the lighted boat creeping slowly over the blackness, and heard Harris's sleepy voice asking where we were. There was an unaccountable strangeness about Harris. It was something more than mere ordinary tiredness. He pulled the boat against a part of the bank from which it was quite impossible for us to get into it, and immediately went to sleep. It took us an immense amount of screaming and roaring to wake him up again and put some sense into him, but we succeeded at last, and got safely on board.

Harris had a sad expression on him, so we noticed, when we got into the boat. He gave you the idea of a man who had been through trouble. We asked him if anything had happened, and he said, Swans. It seemed we had moored close to a swan's nest, and soon after George and I had gone, the female swan came back and kicked up a row about it. Harris had chivied her off, and she had gone away,

and fetched up her old man. Harris said he had had quite a fight with these two swans, but courage and skill had prevailed in the end, and he had defeated them. Half an hour afterwards they returned with eighteen other swans. It must have been a fearful battle, so far as we could understand Harris's account of it. The swans had tried to drag him and Montmorency out of the boat and drowned them,

and he had defended himself like a hero for four hours, and had killed the lot, and they had all paddled away to die. How many swans did you say they were? asked George. Thirty-two, replied Harris, sleepily. You said eighteen just now. No, I didn't, granted Harris. I said twelve. I think I can't count.

What were the real facts about these swans we never found out? We questioned Harris on the subject in the morning and he said, What swans? And seemed to think that George and I had been dreaming. Oh, how delightful it was to be safe in the boat after our trials and fears. We ate a hearty supper, George and I, and we should have had some toddy after it if we could have found the whiskey, but we could not.

We examined Harris as to what he had done with it, but he did not seem to know what we meant by whiskey. or what we were talking about at all. Montmorency looked as though he knew something, but said nothing. I slept well that night, and should have slept better if it had not been for Harris. I have a vague recollection of having been woke up at least a dozen times during the night by Harris wandering about the boat with a lantern, looking for his clothes. He seemed to be worrying about his clothes all night.

Twice he roused up George and myself to see if we were lying on his trousers. George got quite wild the second time. What the thunder do you want your trousers for in the middle of the night? He asked indignantly. Why don't you lie down and go to sleep? I found him in trouble the next time I awoke because he could not find his socks. And my last hazy remembrance is of being rolled over on my side and of hearing Harris muttering something about it being an extraordinary thing where his umbrella could have got to.

End of Chapter 14. Recording by Adrian Wheel. Chapter 15 of Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. We woke late the next morning, and at Harris's earnest desire, partook of a plain breakfast with non-dainties. Then we cleaned up, and put everything straight, a continual labour which was beginning to afford me a pretty clear insight into a question that had often posed me, namely how a woman with the work of only one house on her hands manages to pass away her time. time, and at about ten set out on what we had determined should be a good day's journey. We agreed that we would pull this morning, as a change from towing,

and Harris thought the best arrangement would believe that George and I should scull, and he steer. I did not chime in with this idea at all. I said I thought Harris would have been showing a more proper spirit if he had suggested that he and George should work, and let me rest of it. It seemed to me that I was doing more than my fair share of the work on this trip, and I was beginning to feel strongly on the subject. It always does seem to me that I am doing more work than I should do. It is not that I object to the work, mind you.

I like work. It fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours. I love to keep it by me. The idea of getting rid of it nearly breaks my heart. You cannot give me too much work. To accumulate work has almost become a passion with me. My study is so full of it now that there is hardly an inch of room for any more. I shall have to throw out a wing soon.

And I am careful of my work, too. Why, some of the work that I have by me now has been in my possession for years and years, and there isn't a finger mark on it. I take a great pride in my work, I take it down now and then, and dust it. No man keeps his work in a better state of preservation than I do. But though I crave for work, I still like to be fair. I do not ask for more than my proper share, but I get it without a way. asking for it, at least so it appears to me, and this worries me. George says he does not think

I need trouble myself on the subject. He thinks it is only my over-scrupulous nature that makes me fear I am having more than my due, and that, as a matter of fact, I don't have half as much as I ought, but I expect he only says this to comfort me. In a boat, I have always noticed that it is the fixed idea of each member of the crew that he is doing everything. Harris's notion was that it was he alone who had been working, and that both George and I had been imposing on him. George, on the other hand, ridiculed the idea of Harris's having done anything more than eaten sleep, and had a cast-iron opinion that it was he, George himself, who had done all the labour worth speaking of. He said he had never been out with such a couple of lazy skulks as

Harris and I. That amused Harris. Fancy old George talking about work, he laughed. Why? About half an hour of it would kill him. Have you ever seen George work? He is. He is. He added, turning to me. I agreed with Harris that I never had, most certainly not since we'd started on this trip. Well, I don't see how you can know much about it one way or the other, George retorted on Harris, for I'm blessed if you haven't been asleep half the time. Have you ever seen Harris fully awake, except at meal time? Asked George, addressing me. Truth compelled me to support George. Harris had been very little good in the boat, so far as helping was concerned, from the beginning.

Well, hang it all. I've done more than old Jay anyhow, rejoined Harris. Well, you couldn't very well have done less, added George. I suppose Jay thinks he is the passenger, continued Harris. And that was their gratitude to me for having brought them and their wretched old boat all the way up from Kingston and for having superintended and managed everything for them and taken care of them and slaved for them. It is the way of the world.

we settled the present difficulty by arranging that harris and george should scull up past redding and that i should tow the boat on from there pulling a heavy boat against a strong stream has few attractions for me now there was a time long ago when i used to clamour for the hard work now i like to give the youngsters a chance i noticed that most of the old river hands are similarly retiring whenever there is any stiff pulling to be done you can always tell the old river hand by the way in which he stretches himself out upon the very very good river hand by the way in which he stretches himself out upon the cushions at the bottom of the boat and encourages the rowers by telling them anecdotes about the marvellous feats he performed last season. Call what you're doing hard work, he draws between his contented wiffs, addressing the two perspiring novices who have been grinding away steadily upstream for the last hour and a half, why Jim Biffles and Jack and I last season pulled up from Marlowe to Goring in one afternoon, never stopped once. Do you remember that, Jack?

jack who has made himself a bed up in the prow of all the rugs and coats he can collect and who has been lying there asleep for the last two hours partially wakes up on being thus appealed to and recollect all about the matter and also remembers that there was an unusually strong stream against them all the way likewise a stiff wind about thirty-four miles i suppose it must have been adds the first speaker reaching down another cushion to put under his head no no don't exaggerate tom murmurs Jack, reprovingly, 33 at the outside. And Jack and Tom, quite exhausted by this conversational effort, drop off to sleep once more. And the two simple-minded youngsters at the skulls feel quite proud of being allowed to row such wonderful oarsmen as Jack and Tom and strain away harder than ever.

When I was a young man, I used to listen to these tales from my elders and take them in and swallow them and digest every word of them and then come up for more. but the new generation do not seem to have the simple faith of the old times. We, George, Harris and myself took O'Rouran up with us once last season and we plied him with the customary stretches about the wonderful things we had done all the way up. We gave him all the regular ones, the time-honoured lies that have done duty up the river with every boating man for years past, and added seven entirely original ones

that we had invented for ourselves, including a really quite likely story founded to a certain extent, on an all-but-true episode, which had actually happened in a modified degree some years ago to friends of ours, a story that a mere child could have believed without injuring itself, much. And that young man mocked at them all, and wanted us to repeat the feats then and there, and to bet us ten to one that we didn't. We got to chatting about our rowing experiences this morning, and to recounting stories of our first efforts in the art of oarsmanship. My own earliest boating recollection is of five of us contributing threepence each, and taking out a curiously constructed craft on the Regents Park Lake, drawing ourselves subsequently

in the Parkkeeper's Lodge. After that, having acquired a taste for the water, I did a good deal of rafting in various suburban brick fields, an exercise providing more interest in excitement than might be imagined, especially when you're in the middle of the pond and the proprietor of the materials of which the raft is constructed suddenly appears on the bank with a big stick in his hand. Your first sensation on seeing this gentleman is that, somehow or other, you don't feel equal to company in conversation, and that if you could do so without appearing rude, you would rather avoid meeting him, and your object is, therefore, to get off on the opposite side of the pond to which he is, and to go home quietly and quickly, pretending not to see him. He, on the contrary,

is yearning to take you by the hand and talk to you. It appears that he knows your father and is intimately acquainted with yourself, but this does not draw you towards him. He says he'll teach you to take his boards and make a raft of them. But seeing that you know how to do this pretty well already, the offer, though doubtless kindly meant, seems a superfluous one on his part,

and you are reluctant to put him to any trouble by accepting it. His anxiety to meet you, however, is proof of, against all your coolness, and the energetic manner in which he dodges up and down the pond so as to be on the spot to greet you when you land is really quite flattering. If he be of a stout and short-winded build, you can easily avoid his advances, but when he is of the youthful and long-legged type, a meeting is inevitable. The interview is, however, extremely brief, most of the conversation being on his part, your remarks being mostly of an exclamatory and monosyllabic order. and as soon as you can take yourself away you do so.

I devoted some three months to rafting, and being then as proficient as there was any need to be at that branch of the art, I determined to go in for rowing proper and join one of the Lee Boating Clubs. Being out in a boat on the River Lee, especially on Saturday afternoons, soon makes you smart at handling a craft, and spry at escaping being run down by ruffs or swamped by barges, and is also affords plenty of opportunity for acquiring the most prompt and graceful method of lying down flat at the bottom of the boat so as to avoid being chucked out

into the river by passing tow lines. But it does not give you style. It was not till I came to the Thames that I got style. My style of rowing is very much admired now. People say it is so quaint. George never went near the water until he was sixteen. Then he and eight other gentlemen of about the same age, went down in a body to queue one Saturday with the idea of hiring a boat there and pulling to Richmond and back. One of their number, a shock-headed youth named Joskins, who had once or twice taken out a boat on the serpentine, told them it was jolly fun, boating. The tide was running out pretty rapidly when they reached the landing stage, and there was a stiff breeze blowing across the river, but this did not trouble them at all,

and they proceeded to select their boat. There was an eight-aude racing outrigger drawn up on the stage. That was the one that took their fancy. They said they'd have that one, please. The boatman was away, and only his boy was in charge. The boy tried to damp their ardour for the outrigger, and showed them two or three very comfortable-looking boats of the family party build, but those would not do at all.

The out-rigger was the boat they thought they would look best in. So the boy launched it, and they took off their coats and prepared to take their seats. The boy suggested that George, who, even in those days, was always the heavy man of any party, should be number four. George said he should be happy to be number four and promptly stepped into the bow's place and sat down with his back to the stern. They got him into his proper position at last, and then the others followed. A particularly nervous boy was appointed Cox, and the steering principle explained to him by Jockeens. Jockeens himself took stroke. He told the others that it was simple enough, All they had to do was to follow him.

They said they were ready, and the boy in the landing stage took a boat hook and shoved them off. What then followed, George is unable to describe in detail. He has a confused recollection of having, immediately on starting, received a violent blow in the small of the back from the butt end of No. 5's skull, at the same time that his own seat seemed to disappear from under him by magic and leave him sitting on the boards.

He also noticed, as a curious circumstance, that number two was at the same instant lying on his back at the bottom of the boat with his legs in the air, apparently in a fit. They passed under Cue Bridge, broadside, at the rate of eight miles an hour, Jockeens being the only one who was rowing. George, on recovering his seat, tried to help him, but on dipping his oar into the water, it immediately, to his intense surprise, disappeared under the boat. and nearly took him with it. And then Cox threw both rudder lines overboard

and burst into tears. How they got back George never knew, but it took them just 40 minutes. A dense crowd watched the entertainment from Q Bridge with much interest, and everybody shouted out to them different directions. Three times they managed to get the boat back through the arch, and three times they were carried under it again,

and every time Cox looked up and saw the bridge above him, he broke out into a renewed sob. George says he little thought that afternoon that he should ever come to really like boating. Harris is more accustomed to sea-roaring than to river work, and says that as an exercise he prefers it. I don't. I remember taking a small boat out at Eastbourne last summer. I used to do a good deal of sea-rowing years ago, and I thought I should be all right, but I found I had forgotten the art entirely. when one skull was deep down underneath the water the other would be flourishing wildly about in the air

to get a grip of the water with both at the same time I had to stand up the parade was crowded with nobility and gentry and I had to pull past them in this ridiculous fashion I landed halfway down the beach and secured the services of an old boatman to take me back I like to watch an old boatman rowing especially one who has been hired by the hour

There is something so beautifully calm and restful about his method. It is so free from that fretful haste, that vehement striving, that is every day becoming more and more the bane of 19th century life. He is not forever straining himself to pass all the other boats. If another boat overtakes him and passes him, it does not annoy him. As a matter of fact, they all do overtake him and pass him, all those that are going his way. This would trouble and irritate some people.

The sublime equanimity of the hired boatman under the ordeal affords us a beautiful lesson against ambition and uppishness. Plain practical rowing of the get-the-boat-along order is not a very difficult art to acquire, but it takes a good deal of practice before a man feels comfortable when rowing past girls. It is the time that worries a youngster. It's jolly funny, he says, as for the 20th time within five minutes he disentangle. his skull from yours, I can get all right when I'm by myself. To see two novices try to keep time with one another is very amusing.

Bao finds it impossible to keep pace with stroke because stroke rose in such an extraordinary fashion. Stroke is intensely indignant at this and explains that what he has been endeavouring to do for the last ten minutes is to adapt his method to Bao's limited capacity. bow in turn then becomes insulted and request stroke not to trouble his head about him bow but devote his mind to setting a sensible stroke or shall i take stroke he adds with the evident idea that that would at once put the whole matter right they splash along for another hundred yards with still moderate success and then the whole secret of their trouble bursts upon stroke like a flash of inspiration i tell you what it is you've got my skulls he cried eyes turning to bow, pass yours over. Well, do you know, I've been wondering how it was I couldn't get on with these, answers bow, quite brightening up, and most willingly assisting in the exchange, now we shall be all right. But they are not, not even then. Stroke has to stretch his arms nearly out of their sockets

to reach his skulls now, while Bowers' pair, at each recovery, hit him a violent blow in the chest. So they changed back again, and come to the conclusion that the man has given them the wrong set altogether, and over their mutual abuse of this man they become quite friendly and sympathetic. George said he had often longed to take to punting for a change. Punting is not as easy as it looks. As in rowing, you soon learn how to get along and handle the craft, but it takes long practice before you can do this with dignity, and without getting the water all up your sleeve. One young man I knew had a very sad accident happened to him the first time he went punting. He had been getting on so well that he had grown quite cheeky over the business

and was walking up and down the punt, working his pole with a careless grace that was quite fascinating to watch. Up he would march to the head of the punt, plant his pole, and then run along right to the other end, just like an old punter. Oh, it was grand. And it would all have gone on being grand if he had not, unfortunately, while looking round to enjoy the scenery, taken just one step more than was any necessity for.

and walked off the punt altogether. The pole was firmly fixed in the mud, and he was left clinging to it while the punt drifted away. It was an undignified position for him. A rude boy on the bank immediately yelled out to a lagging chump to hurry up and see the real monkey on the stick. I could not go to his assistance because, as ill luck would have it, we had not taken the proper precaution to bring out a spare pole with us.

I could only sit and look at him. His expression as the pole slowly sank with him, I shall never forget. There was so much thought in it. I watched him gently let down into the water, and saw him scramble out, sad and wet. I could not help laughing, he looked such a ridiculous figure. I continued to chuckle to myself about it for some time, and then it was suddenly forced in upon me

that really I had got very little to laugh at when I came to think of it. Here was I, alone in a punt, without a pole, drifting helplessly down midstream, possibly towards a weir. I began to feel very indignant with my friend for having stepped overboard and gone off in that way. In mind, at all events, have left me the pole. I drifted on for about a quarter of a mile, and then I came in sight of a fishing punt moored in midstream, in which sat two old fishermen.

They saw me bearing down upon them, and they called out to keep me out of their way. I can't, I shouted back. But you don't try. they answered. I explained the matter to them when I got nearer, and they caught me and lent me a pole. The weir was just fifty yards below. I am glad they happened to be there.

The first time I went punting was in company with three other fellows. They were going to show me how to do it. We could not all start together, so I said I would go down first and get out the punt, and then I could potter about and practice a bit until they came. I could not get a punt out that afternoon. they were all engaged, so I had nothing else to do but to sit down on the bank, watching the river, and waiting for my friends.

I had not been sitting there long before my attention became attracted to a man in a punt, who, I noticed with some surprise, wore a jacket and cap exactly like mine. He was evidently a novice at punting, and his performance was most interesting. You never knew what was going to happen when he put the pole in. He evidently did not know himself. Sometimes he shot upstream, and sometimes he shot downstream, and at other times he simply spun round and came up the other side of the pole. And with every result he seemed equally surprised and annoyed.

The people about the river began to get quite absorbed in him after a while, and to make bets with one another as to what would be the outcome of his next push. In the course of time my friends arrived on the opposite bank, and they stopped and watched him too. his back was towards them and they only saw his jacket and cap. From this they immediately jumped to the conclusion that it was I, their beloved companion who was making an exhibition of himself, and their delight knew no bounds.

They commenced to chaff him unmercifully. I did not grasp their mistake at first, and I thought, how rude of them to go on like that, with a perfect stranger too, but before I could call out and reprove them, the explanation of the matter occurred to me, and I withdrew behind a tree. Oh, how they enjoyed themselves, ridiculing that young man.

For five good minutes they stood there, shouting rivalry at them, deriding him, mocking him, jeering at him. They peppered him with stale jokes, they even made a few new ones and threw at him. They hurled at him all the private family jokes belonging to our set, and which must have been perfectly unintelligible to him. And then, unable to stand their brutal jibes any longer, he turned round on them, and they saw his face. I was glad to notice that they had sufficient decency left in them to look very foolish. They explained to him that they had thought he was someone they knew. They said they hoped he would not deem them capable of so insulting anyone except a personal friend of their own.

Of course, they're having mistaken him for a friend excused it. I remember Harris telling me once of a bathing experience he had at Boulogne. He was swimming about there near the beach when he felt himself suddenly seized by the neck from behind and forcibly plunged underwater. He struggled violently, but whoever had got hold of him seemed to be a perfect Hercules in strength, and all his efforts to escape were unavailing.

He had given up, kicking, and was trying to turn his thoughts upon solemn things, when his captor released him. He regained his feet, and looked round for his would-be murderer. The assassin was standing close by him, laughing heartily, but the moment he caught sight of Harris's face as it emerged from the water, he started back and seemed quite concerned.

I really beg your pardon, he stammered confusedly, but I took you for a friend of mine. Harris thought it was lucky for him that the man had not mistaken him for a relation, or he would probably have been drowned outright. Sailing is a thing that wants knowledge and practice too, though, as a boy I did not think so. I had an idea it came natural to a body like rounders and touch. I knew another boy who held this view likewise, and so one windy day we thought we would try the sport. We were stopping down at Yarmouth and we decided that we would go for a trip up the year.

We hired a sailing boat at the yard by the bridge and started off. It's rather a rough day, said the man to us as we put off. Better take in a reef and luff sharp when you get round the bend. We said that we would make a point of it and left him with a cheery. Good morning, wondering to ourselves how you love. and where we were to get a reef from, and what we were to do with it when we had got it. We rode until we were out of sight of the town, and then, with a wide stretch of water in front of us, and the wind blowing a perfect hurricane across it, we felt that the time had come to commence operations.

Hector, I think that was his name, went on pulling while I unrolled the sail. It seemed a complicated job, but I accomplished it at length, and then came the question, Which was the top end? By a sort of natural instinct we of course eventually decided that the bottom was the top and set to work to fix it upside down. But it was a long time before we could get it up, either that way or any other way. The impression on the mind of the sale seemed to be that we were playing at funerals and that I was the corpse and itself was the winding sheet.

When it found that this was not the idea, it hit me over the head with the boom and refused to do anything. "'Wet it,' said Hector. "'Drop it over and get it wet.' "'He said people in ships always wetted the sails before they put them up. "'So I whetted it, but that only made matters worse than they were before. "'A dry sail clinging to your legs and wrapping itself round your head is not pleasant, "'but when the sail is sopping wet, it becomes quite vexing.

"'We did get the thing up at last, the two of us together. "'We fixed it, not exactly upside down, more sideways-like, and we tied it up to the mast with the painter, which we cut off for the purpose. That the boat did not upset, I simply state as a fact. Why it did not upset, I am unable to offer any reason. I have often thought about the matter since, but I have never succeeded in arriving at any satisfactory explanation of the phenomenon. Possibly the result may have been brought about by the natural obstinacy of all things in this world.

The boat may have possibly have come to the conclusion, judging from a cursory view of our behaviour that we had come out for a morning's suicide and had therefore determined to disappoint us that is the only suggestion I can offer By clinging like grim death to the gunwale We'd just managed to keep inside the boat But it was exhausting work

Hector said that pirates and other seafaring people Generally lashed the rudder to something or other And hauled in the main top-chib During severe squalls And thought we ought to try to do something of the kind but I was for letting her have her head to the wind. As my advice was by far the easiest to follow, we ended by adopting it,

and contrived to embrace the gunwale and give her her head. The boat travelled upstream for about a mile, at a pace I have never sailed at since, and don't want to again. Then, at a bend, she healed right over till half a sail was underwater. Then she righted herself by a miracle, and flew for a long, low bank. of soft mud. That mud bank saved us.

The boat ploughed its way into the middle of it and then stuck. Finding that we were once more able to move according to our ideas instead of being pitched and thrown about like peas in a bladder, we crept forward and cut down the sail. We had had enough sailing.

We did not want to overdo the thing and get a surfeit of it. We had had a sail, a good, all-round, exciting, interesting sail, and now we thought we would have a row, just for a change-like. We took the skulls, and tried to push the boat off the mud, and in doing so we broke one of the skulls.

After that we proceeded with great caution, but they were a wretched old pair, and the second one cracked almost easier than the first, and left us helpless. The mud stretched out for about a hundred yards in front of us, and behind us was the water. The only thing to be done was to sit and wait until someone came by. It was not the sort of day to attract people out on the river, and it was three hours before a soul came in sight. It was an old fisherman who, with immense difficulty, at last rescued us, and we were towed back in an ignominious fashion to the boatyard. What between tipping the man who had brought us home, and paying for the broken skulls,

and for having been out for four hours and a half, it cost us a pretty considerable number of weeks' pocket money, that sale, but we learned experience and they say that is always cheap at any price End of Chapter 15 Recording by Adrian Weal Chapter 16 of Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome

This Librevox recording is in the public domain We came in sight of Reading About 11 The river is dirty and dismal here One does not linger in the neighbourhood of Reading The town itself is a famous old place dating from the dim days of King Ethelred when the Danes anchored their warships in the Kennet and started from Reading to ravage all the land of Wessex

and here Ethelred and his brother Alfred fought and defeated them, Ethelred doing the praying and Alfred the fighting. In later years, Reading seems to have been regarded as a handy place to run down to when matters were becoming unpleasant in London. Parliament generally rushed after Reading, whenever there was a plague on at Westminster, and in 1625, the law followed. suit and all the courts were held at Reading. It must have been worthwhile having a mere

ordinary plague now and then in London to get rid of both the lawyers and the Parliament. During the parliamentary struggle, Reading was besieged by the Earl of Essex, and a quarter of a century later, the Prince of Orange routed King James's troops there. Henry I was buried at Reading in the Benedictine Abbey founded by him there, the ruins of which may still be seen, and in this same abbey great John of Gaunt was married to Lady Blanche. At Reading Lock we came up with a steam launch, belonging to some friends of mine, and they towed us up to within about a mile of streetly. It is very delightful being towed by a launch.

I prefer it myself to rowing. The run would have been more delightful still if it had not been for a lot of wretched small boats that were continually getting in the way of our launch, and to avoid running down which we had to be continually easing and stopping, it is really most annoying the manner in which these rowing boats get in the way of one's launch up the river something ought to be done to stop it and they are so confoundedly impertinent too over it you can whistle till you nearly burst your boiler before they will trouble themselves to hurry i would have one or two of them run down now and then if i had my way just to teach them all a lesson the river becomes very lovely from a little above redding the railway rather spoils it near thalhurst but from maple durham up to streetly it is glory A little above Maple Durham Lock he passed Hardwick House, where Charles I played bowls. The neighbourhood of Painebourne, where the quaint little Swan inn stands, must be as familiar

to the habitues of the art exhibitions as it is to its own inhabitants. My friend's launch cast us loose just below the grotto, and then Harris wanted to make out that it was my turn to pull. This seemed to me most unreasonable. It had been arranged in the morning that I should bring the boat up to three miles above Reading. Well, here we were, ten miles above Reading. Surely it was now their turn again. I couldn't get either George or Harris to see the matter in its proper light, however, so to save argument I took the skulls. I had not been pulling for more than a minute or so

when George noticed something black floating on the water, and we drew up to it. George leant over as we neared it and laid hold of it, and then he drew back with a cry and a blanched face. It was the dead body of a woman. It lay very lightly on the water, and the face was sweet and calm. It was not a beautiful face. It was too prematurely aged looking,

too thin and drawn to be that, but it was a gentle, lovable face, in spite of its stamp of pinch and poverty, and upon it was that look of restful peace that comes to the faces of the sick sometimes, when at last the pain has left them. Fortunately for us, we having no desire to be kept hanging around coroner's courts,

some men on the bank had seen the body too, and now took charge of it from us. We found out the woman's story afterwards. Of course it was the old, old, vulgar tragedy. She had loved and been deceived, for had deceived herself. Anyhow, she had sinned, some of us do now and then, and her family and friends, naturally shocked and indignant, had closed their doors against her.

Left to fight the world alone, with the millstone of her shame around her neck, she had sunk ever lower and lower. For a while she had kept both herself and the child, on the twelve shillings a week that twelve hours drudgery had done, procured her, paying six shillings out of it for the child, and keeping her own body and soul together on the remainder. Six shillings a week does not keep body and soul together very unitedly. They want to get away from each other when there is only such a very slight bond as that between them, and one day, I suppose, the pain and the dull monotony of it all had stood before

her eyes plainer than usual, and the mocking spectre had frightened her. She made one last appeal to friends, but against the chill wall of their respectability, the voice of the airing outcast fell unheeded, and then she had gone to see her child, had held it in her arms and kissed it in a weary, dull sort of way, and without betraying any particular emotion of any kind, and had left it, after putting into its hand a penny-box of chocolate she had bought it, and afterwards, with her last few shillings, had taken a ticket and come down to goring. It seemed that the bitterest thoughts of her life must have centred about the wooded reaches and the bright green meadows around goring, but women strangely hug the knife that stabs them,

And, perhaps, amidst the gall, there may have mingled also sunny memories of sweetest hours, spent upon those shadow deeps over which the great trees bend their branches down so low. She had wandered about the woods by the river's brink all day, and then when evening fell and the grey twilight spread its dusky robe upon the waters, she stretched her arms out to the silent river that had known her sorrow and her joy, and the old river had taken her into its gentle arms, and had laid her weary head upon its bosom, and had hushed away the pain. Thus had she sinned in all things, sinned in living and in dying.

God help her, and all other sinners, if any more there be. Coring on the left bank, and streetly on the right, are both or either charming places to stay at for a few days. The reaches down to Pangbourne woo one for a sunny sail, or for a moonlight row, and the country roundabout is full of beauty. We had intended to push on to Wallingford that day, but the sweet smiling face of the river here lured us to linger for a while, and so we left our boat at the bridge, and went up into Streatley,

and lunched at the bull, much to Montmorence's satisfaction. They say that the hills on each side of the stream here once joined, and formed a barrier across what is now the Thames, and that then the river ended there above Goring in one vast lake. I am not in a position either to contradict or affirm this statement. I simply offer it. It is an ancient place, Streatly, dating back like most riverside towns and villages to british and saxon times goring is not nearly so pretty a little spot to stop at as streetly if you have your choice but is passing fair enough in its way and is nearer the railway in case you want to slip off without paying your hotel bill

End of Chapter 16. Recording by Adrian Wheel. Chapter 17 of Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. We stayed two days at Streetley and got our clothes washed. We had tried washing them ourselves in the river under George's superintendents, and it had been a failure. Indeed, it had been more than a failure

because we were worse off after we had washed our clothes than we were before. before we had washed them, they had been very, very dirty, it is true, but they were just wearable. After we had washed them, well, the river between Reading and Henley was much cleaner after we had washed our clothes in it than it was before. All the dirt contained in the river between Reading and Henley we collected during that wash and worked it into our clothes. The washerwoman at Streakley said she felt she owed it to herself to charge us just three times the usual prices for that wash. She said it had not been like washing It had been more in the nature of excavating We paid the bill without a murmur

The neighbourhood of streetcly and goring Is a great fishing centre There is some excellent fishing to be had here The river abounds in pike, roach Dace, Gudgeon and eels just here And you can sit and fish for them all day Some people do They never catch them

I never knew anybody catch anything Up the Thames except minnows and dead cats but that has nothing to do, of course, with fishing. The local fisherman's guide doesn't say a word about catching anything. All it says is the place is a good station for fishing. And from what I have seen of the district, I'm quite prepared to bear out this statement. There is no spot in the world where you can get more fishing

or where you can fish for a longer period. Some fishermen come here and fish for a day. And others stop and fish for a month. You can hang on and fish for a year if you want to. It will all be the same. The angler's guide to the Thames says that Jack and Perch are also to be had about here. But there the angler's guide is wrong. Jack and Perch may be about there.

Indeed, I know for a fact that they are. You can see them here in shoals when you're out for a walk along the banks. They come and stand half out of the water with their mouths open for biscuits. And if you go for a bathe, they crowd round and get in your way and irritate you. But they are not to be had by the... bit of worm on the end of a hook, nor anything like it, not they. I am not a good fisherman myself. I devoted a considerable amount of attention to the subject at one time, and was getting on, as I thought, fairly well, but the old hands told me that I should never be any real good at it,

and they advised me to give it up. They said that I was an extremely neat thrower, and that I seemed to have plenty of gumption for the thing, and quite enough constitutional laziness. but they were sure I should never make anything of a fisherman. I had not got sufficient imagination. They said that as a poet, or a shilling shocker, or a reporter, or anything of that kind, I might be satisfactory, but that to gain any position as a Thames angler would require more play of fancy, more power of invention than I appear to possess.

Some people are under the impression that all this is required to make a good fisherman is the ability to tell lies easily and without blushing. But this is a mistake. Mere bald fabrication is useless. The various Tyro can manage that. It is in the circumstantial detail, the embellishing touches of probability,

the general air of scrupulous, almost of pedantic veracity, that the experienced angler is seen. Anybody can come in and say, oh, I caught 15 dozen perch yesterday evening, or last Monday I landed a gudgeon, weighing 18 pounds and measuring three feet from the tip to the tail. There is no art, no skill required for that sort of thing.

It shows pluck, but that is all. No, your accomplished angler would scorn to tell a lie. That way, his method is a study in itself. He comes in quietly, with his hat on, appropriates the most comfortable chair, lights his pipe, and commences to puff in silence. He lets the youngsters brag away for a while And then during a momentary lull He removes the pipe from his mouth

And remarks as he knocks the ashes out against the bars Well, I had a all on Tuesday evening That is not much good my telling anybody about Oh, why is that, they ask Because I don't expect anybody would believe me if I did replies the old fellow calmly And without even a tinge of bitterness in his tone As he refills his pipe

and request the landlord to bring him three of scotch, cold. There is a pause after this, nobody feeling sufficiently sure of himself to contradict the old gentleman. So he has to go on by himself without any encouragement. No, he continues thoughtfully. I shouldn't believe it myself if anybody told it to me, but it's a fact for all that. I'd been sitting there all the afternoon and had caught literally nothing,

except a few dozen days and a score of Jack and I was just about giving it up as a bad job when I suddenly felt a rather smart pull at the line I thought it was another little one and I went to jerk it up hang me if I could move the rod it took me half an hour half an hour sir to land that fish

at every moment I thought the line was going to snap I reached him at last and what do you think it was "'A sturgeon, a forty-pound sturgeon, "'taken on a line, sir. "'Yes, you may well look surprised. "'I'll have another three of Scotch, landlord, please.' "'And then he goes on to tell of the astonishment

"'of everyone who saw it, "'and what his wife said when he got home, "'and of what Joe Buggles thought about it. "'I asked the landlord of an inn up the river once "'if it did not injure him sometimes, "'listening to the tales that the fisherman about there told him, "'and he said, "'Oh, no, not now, sir.

It did used to knock me over a bit of first, but, oh, love you, me and the missus we listen to them all day now. It's what she used to, you know, it's what she used to. I knew a young man once, who was a most conscientious fellow, and when he took to fly fishing, he determined never to exaggerate his halls by more than 25%. When I have caught 40 fish, said he, then I will tell people that I have caught 50 and so on, but I will not lie any more than that, because it is sinful to lie. But the 25% plan did not work at all. He never was able to use it.

The greatest number of fish he ever caught in one day was three, and you can't add 25% to three, at least, not in fish. So he increased his percentage to 33 and a third, but that again was awkward when he had only caught one or two. So to simplify matters, he made up his mind to just double the quantity. He stuck to this arrangement for a couple of months, and then he grew dissatisfied with it. Nobody believed him when he told them that he only doubled,

and he therefore gained no credit that way whatever, while his moderation put him at a disadvantage among the other anglers. When he had really caught three small fish, and said he had caught six, it used to make him quite jealous to hear a man whom he knew for a fact had only caught one, going about telling people he had landed two dozen. So, eventually, he made one final arrangement with himself,

which he has religiously held to ever. since, and that was to count each fish that he caught as 10, and to assume 10 to begin with. For example, if he did not catch any fish at all, then he said he had caught 10 fish. You could never catch less than 10 fish by his system. That was the foundation of it. Then, if by any chance he really did catch one fish, he called it 20, while two fish would count 30, 3, 40, and so on. It is a simple and easily worked plan, and there has been some talk lately of it been made use of by the angling

fraternity in general. Indeed, the committee of the Thames Anglers Association did recommend its adoption about two years ago, but some of the older members opposed it. They said they would consider the idea if the number were doubled, and each fish counted as 20. If ever you have an evening to spare, up the river, I should advise you to drop into one of the little village inns, and take a seat in the taproom. You will be nearly sure to meet one or two old rodmen, sipping their toddy there, and they will tell you enough fishy stories in half an hour to give you indigestion for a month. George and I, I don't know what had become of Harris, he had gone out and had a shave early in the afternoon, and had then come back and spent full 40 minutes in pipe-claying his shoes. We had not seen him since.

George and I, therefore, and the dog, left to ourselves, went for a walk to Wallingford on the second evening, and coming home we called in at a little Riverside Inn for a rest and other things. We went into the parlour and sat down. There was an old fellow there, smoking a long clay pipe, and we naturally began chatting. He told us that it had been a fine day today, and we told him that it had been a fine day yesterday, and then we all told each other that we thought it would be a fine day tomorrow.

And George said the crops seemed to be coming up nicely. After that it came out, somehow or other, that we were strangers in the neighbourhood, and that we were going away the next morning. Then a pause ensued in the conversation, during which our eyes wandered round the room. They finally rested upon a dusty old glass case, fixed very high up above the chimney-piece,

and containing a trout. It rather fascinated me that trout. It was such a monstrous fish. In fact, of first glance, I thought it was a cod. Ah, said the old gentleman, following the direction of my gaze. Fine fellow that, ain't he? Quite uncommon, I murmured.

And George asked the old man how much he thought it weighed. Eighteen pounds, six ounces, said our friend, rising and taking down his coat. Yes, he continued, it was sixteen years ago, come the third and next month that I landed him. I caught him just below the bridge with a minol. They told me he were in the river, and I said I'd have him, and so I did.

You don't see many fish that size about here now, I'm thinking, good night, gentlemen, good night. And out he went, and left us alone. We could not take our eyes off the fish after that. It really was a remarkably fine fish. We were still looking at it when the local carrier, who had just stopped at the inn, came to the door of the room with a pot of beer in his hand,

and he also looked at the fish. "'Good-sized trout, that,' said George, turning round him. "'Ah, you may well say that, sir,' replied the man. And then, after a pull at his beer, he added, "'Maybe he wasn't here, sir, when that fish was caught.' "'No,' we told him. "'We were strangers in the neighbourhood.' "'Ah,' said the carrier,

"'then, of course, how should you?' "'It was nearly five years ago that I caught that trout.' "'Oh, was it you who caught it then?' said I. "'Yes, sir,' replied the genial old fellow. "'I caught him just below the lock. "'Leastways, what was the lock then, one Friday afternoon, "'and the remarkable thing about it is that I caught him with a fly. I'd gone out pike fishing, bless you, never thinking of a trout, and when I saw

that whopper on the end of my line, blessed if it didn't quite take me a back. Well, you see, he weighed 26 pound. Good night, gentlemen. Good night. Five minutes afterwards, a third man came in and described how he had caught it early one morning with bleak, and then he left, and a stolid, solemn-looking, middle-aged individual came in and sat down over a little-aged individual came in and sat down over by the window. None of us spoke for a while, but at length George turned to the newcomer and said, I beg your pardon, I hope you'll forgive the liberty that we perfect strangers in the neighbourhood are taking, but my friend here of myself would be so much obliged if you would tell us how you caught that trout up there. Why? Who told you that I caught the trout? Was the surprised query.

We said that nobody had told us so, but somehow or other we felt instinctively that it was he who had done it. Well, it is a most remarkable thing, most remarkable, answered the stolid stranger, laughing, because as a matter of fact, you are quite right. I did catch it, but fancy you're guessing it like that. Dear me, it's really a most remarkable thing. And then he went on and told us how it had taken him half an hour to land it, and how it had broken his rod. He said he had weighed it carefully when he reached home, and it had turned the scale at £34. He was, he was. He was, and he was, went in his turn, and when he was gone, the landlord came in to see us. We told him the various histories we had heard about his trout, and he was immensely amused, and we all laughed very heartily.

Fancy Jim Bates and Joe Muggles and Mr Jones and all bully-moulders all telling you they caught it. Ha! Ha! ha! Well, that is good, said the honest old fellow, laughing heartily. Yes, they are the sort to give it me, to put up in my parlour, if they had caught it, they are. and then he told us the real history of the fish. It seemed that he had caught it himself, years ago, when he was quite a lad, not by any art or skill, but by that unaccountable luck that appears to always wait upon a boy when he plays the wag from school and goes out fishing on a sunny afternoon with a bit of string tied on to the end of a tree.

He said that bringing home that trout had saved him from a whacking, and that even his schoolmaster had said it was worth the rule of three and practice put together. He was called out of the room at this point, and George and I again turned our gaze upon the fish. It really was a most astonishing trout. The more we looked at it, the more we marvelled at it. It excited George so much that he climbed up on the back of a chair to get a better view of it. And then the chair slipped, and George clasped. and George clutched wildly at the trout case to save himself,

and down it came with a crash. George and the chair on top of it. You haven't injured the fish, have you? I cried in alarm rushing up. I hope not, said George, rising cautiously and looking about. But he had. That trout lay shattered into a thousand fragments. I say a thousand, but they may only have been 900.

I did not count them. We thought it strange and unaccountable that a stuffed trout should break up into little pieces like that. And so it would have been strange and unaccountable if it had been a stuffed trout, but it was not. That trout was plaster of Paris. End of Chapter 17. Recording by Adrian Wheel Chapter 18 of Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome. This Librevox recording is in the public domain.

We left Streatley, early the next morning, and pulled up to Cullham and slept under the canvas in the backwater there. The river is not extraordinarily interesting between Streetley and Wollingford. From Cleve you get a stretch of six and a half miles without a lock. I believe this is the longest uninterrupted stretch anywhere above Teddington, and the Oxford Club make use of it for their trial eights. But however satisfactory this absence of locks may be to rowing men, it is to be regretted by the mere pleasure-seeker. For myself, I am fond of locks.

They pleasantly break the monotony of the pull. I like sitting in the boat and slowly rising out of the cool depths, up into new reaches and fresh views, or sinking down, as it were, out of the world, and then waiting, while the gloomy gates creak, and the narrow strip of daylight between them widens till the fair, smiling river lies full before you, and you push your little boat out from its brief prison

onto the welcoming waters once again. They are picturesque little spots these locks. The stout old lockkeeper, or his cheerful-looking wife, or bright-eyed daughter, are pleasant folk to have a passing chat with. You meet other boats there, and river gossip is exchanged. The Thames would not be the fairyland it is without its flower-decked locks. Talking of locks reminds me of an accident George and I very nearly had one summer morning at Hampton Court. It was a glorious day, and the lock was crowded, and as is a common practice up the river,

a speculative photographer was taking a picture of us all as we lay upon the rising waters. I did not catch what was going on at first, and was therefore extremely surprised at noticing George hurriedly smoothing out his trousers, ruffle up his hair, and stick his cap on in a rakish manner at the back of his head, and then, assuming an expression of mingled affability and sadness, sit down in a graceful attitude and try to hide his feet. My first idea was that he had suddenly caught sight of some girl he knew, and I looked about to see who it was. Everybody in the locked seemed to have been suddenly struck wooden.

They were all standing or sitting about in the most quaint and curious attitudes I have ever seen, off a Japanese fan. All the girls were smiling, oh, they did look so sweet, and all the fellows were frowning and looking stern and noble. and then, at last, the truth flashed across me, and I wondered if I should be in time. Ours was the first boat, and it would be unkind of me to spoil the man's picture, I thought. So I faced round quickly, and took up a position in the prow, where I leant with careless grace upon the hitcher, in an attitude suggestive of agility and strength.

I arranged my hair with a curl over the forehead, and threw an air of tender wistfulness into my expression, mingled with a touch of cynicism, which I am told suits me. As we stood waiting for the eventful moment, I heard someone behind me call out, Hi, look at your nose! I could not turn around to see what was the matter, and whose nose it was that was to be looked at. I stole a side glance at George's nose.

It was all right. At all events, there was nothing wrong with it that could be altered. I squinted down at my own, and that seemed all that could be expected also. Look at your nose, you stupid axe! "'Yes,' came the same voice again, louder. "'And then another voice cried, "'Push your nose out, can't you? You, you too, with the dog!'

"'Neither George nor I dared to turn round. "'The man's hand was on the cap, "'and the picture might be taken any moment. "'Was it us they were calling to? "'What was the matter with our noses? "'Why were they to be pushed out?' "'But now the whole lock started yelling, "'and the stentorian voice from the back shouted,

"'Look at your boat, sir! "'You, in the red and black caps! It's your two corpses that will get taken in that photo, if you ain't quick. We looked then, and saw that the nose of our boat had got fixed under the woodwork of the lock, while the incoming water was rising all around it and tilting it up. In another moment we should be over. Quick as thought we each seized an awe, and a vigorous blow against the side of the lock with the butt-ends released the boat,

and sent a sprawling on our backs. We did not come out well in that photograph, George and I. Of course, as was to be expected, our luck ordained it, that the man should set his wretched machine in motion at the precise moment that we were both lying on our backs with a wild expression of, where am I, and what is it on our faces, and our four feet waving madly in the air.

Our feet were undoubtedly the leading article in that photograph. Indeed, very little else was to be seen. They filled up the foreground entirely. behind them you caught glimpses of the other boats and bits of the surrounding scenery but everything and everybody else in the locked looks so utterly insignificant and paltry compared with our feet that all the other people felt quite ashamed of themselves and refused to subscribe to the picture the owner of one steam launch who had bespoke six copies rescinded the order on seeing the negative he says he would take them if anybody could show him his launch but nobody could

it was somewhere behind George's right foot. There was a good deal of unpleasantness over the business. The photographer thought we ought to take a dozen copies each, seeing that the photo was about nine-tenths us, but we declined. We said we had no objection to being photoed full length, but we preferred being taken the right way up. Wollingford, six miles above streetly,

is a very ancient town, and has been an active centre for the making of English history. It was a rude mud-built town in the time of the Britons, who squatted there until the Roman legions evicted them, and replaced their clay-baked walls by mighty fortifications, the trace of which time has not yet succeeded in sweeping away, so well these old-world masons knew how to build. But time, though he halted at Roman walls,

soon crumbled Romans to dust, and on the ground in later years fought savage Saxons and huge Danes until the Normans came. It was a walled and fortified town up to the time of the parliamentary war when it suffered a long and bitter siege from Fairfax. It fell at last and then the walls were raised. From Wollingford up to Dorchester, the neighbourhood of the river grows more hilly, varied and picturesque. Dorchester stands half a mile from the river. It can be reached by paddling up the tame, if you have a small boat, but the best way is to leave the river at day. lock and then take a walk across the fields. Dorchester is a delightfully peaceful old place, nestling in

stillness and silence and drowsiness. Dorchester, like Wallingford, was a city in ancient British times. It was then called Kea Doran, the city on the water. In more recent times the Romans formed a great camp there, the fortifications surrounding which now seemed like low, even hills. In Saxon days it was the capital of Wessex. It is a very camp. It is a very camp. It is a fortification surrounding which now seemed like low, even hills. It is is very old, and it was very strong and great once. Now it sits aside from the stirring world, and nods and dreams. Round Clifton Hampton, itself a wonderfully pretty village, old-fashioned, peaceful and dainty with flowers. The river scenery is rich and beautiful. If you stay the night on land at Clifton, you cannot do better than put up at the Barley Moe. It is without exception,

I should say, the quaintest most old world in up the river. It stands on the right of the bridge, quite away from the village. Its low-pitched gables and thatched roof and latticed windows give it quite a story-book appearance, while inside it is even still more, once upon a time, if I'd. It would not be a good place for the heroine of a modern novel to stay at. The heroine of a modern novel is always divinely tall, and she is ever drawing herself up to her full height.

At the Barley Moe she would bump her head against the ceiling each time she did this. It would also be a bad house for a drunken man to put up at. There are too many surprises in the way of unexpected steps down into this room and up into that, and as for getting upstairs to his bedroom, or ever finding his bed when he got up, either operation would be an utter impossibility to him.

We were up earlier the next morning, as we wanted to be in Oxford by the afternoon. It is surprising how early one can get up when camping out. One does not yearn for just another five minutes, nearly so much, lying wrapped up in a rug on the boards of a boat with a Gladstone bag for a pillow, as one does in a feather bed. We had finished breakfast and were through Clifton Lock by half-past eight. From Clifton to Cullum, the river banks are flat, monotonous and uninteresting.

but after you get through Cullam Lock, the coldest and deepest lock on the river, the landscape improves. At Abingdon, the river passes by the streets. Abingdon is a typical country town of the smaller order, quiet, eminently respectable, clean and desperately dull. It prides itself on being old, but whether it can compare in this respect with Wallingford and Dorchester seems doubtful. A famous Abbey stood here once, and within what is left of its sanctity. sanctified walls they brew bitter ale nowadays. In St Nicholas Church at Abingdon there is a monument to John Blackwall and his wife Jane, who both, after leading a happy married life, died on the very same day August the 21st, 1625, and in St. Helen's Church, it is recorded that W. Lee, who died in 1637,

had in his lifetime issue from his loins two hundred lacking but three. If you work this out, that Mr. W. Lee's family numbered 197. Mr. W. Lee, five times mayor of Abingdon, was no doubt a benefactor to his generation, but I hope there are not many of his kind about in this overcrowded 19th century. From Abingdon to Newham Courtney is a lovely stretch. Newham Park is well worth a visit.

It can be viewed on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The house contains a fine collection of pictures and curiosities, and the grounds are very beautiful. The pool under Sanford Lashire, just behind the lock, is a very good place to drown yourself in. The undercurrent is terribly strong, and if you once get down into it, you are all right. An obelisk marks the spot where two men have already been drowned,

while bathing there, and the steps of the obelisk are generally used as a diving board by young men now, who wish to see if the place really is dangerous. Ifley Lock and Mill, a mile, before you reach Oxford, is a favourite subject with the river-loving brethren of the brush. The real article, however, is rather disappointing after the pictures. Few things I have noticed come quite up to the pictures of them in this world. We pass through Ifley Lock at about half-past twelve, and then, having tidied up the boat and made all ready for landing,

we set to work on our last mile. Between Ifley and Oxford is the most difficult bit of the river I know. You want to be born on that bit of water to understand it. I have been over it a fairish number of times, but I have never been able to get the hang of it. The man who could row a straight course from Oxford to Ifley ought to be able to live comfortably under one roof with his wife, his mother-in-law, his eldest sister, and the old servant who was in the family when he was a baby. First the current drives you onto the right bank and then on to the left, then it takes you out into the middle, turns you around three times and carries you upstream again, and always ends by trying to smash you up against a college barge. Of course, as a consequence of this, we got in the way

of a good many other boats during the mile, and they and ours, and of course, as a consequence of that, a good deal of bad language occurred. I don't know why it should be, but everybody is always so exceptionally irritable on the river. Little mishaps that you would hardly notice on dry land, drive you nearly frantic with rage when they occur on the water. When Harris or George makes an ass of himself on dry land, I smile indulgently. When they behave in a chucklehead way on the river, I use the most blood-curdling language to them. When another boat gets in my way, I feel I want to take an awe and kill all the people in it. The mildest-tempered people, when on land, become violent and bloodthirsty when in a boat.

I did a little boating once with a young lady. She was naturally of the sweetest and gentlest disposition imaginable, but on the river it was quite awful to hear her. Oh, trap the man! she would exclaim, when some unfortunate sculler would get in her way. Why don't he look where he's going? And, oh, bother the silly old thing, she would say indignantly, when the sail would not go up properly,

and she would catch hold of it and shake it quite brutally. Yet, as I have said, when on shore she was kind-hearted and amiable enough. The air of the river has a demoralising effect upon one's temper, and this it is, I suppose, which causes even barge men to be sometimes rude to one another, and to use language which, no doubt in their calmer moments, they regret. End of Chapter 18. Recording by Adrian Wheel Chapter 19 of Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome.

This Librevox recording is in the public domain. We spent two very pleasant days at Oxford. There are plenty of dogs in the town of Oxford. Montmorency had eleven fights on the first day, and fourteen on the second, and evidently thought he had got to heaven. Among folk too constitutionally weak, or too constitutionally lazy,

whichever it may be, to relish upstream work, it is a common practice to get a boat at Oxford and row down. For the energetic, however, the upstream journey is certainly to be preferred. It does not seem good to be always going with the current. There is more satisfaction in squaring one's back and fighting against it and winning one's way forward in spite of it,

at least so I feel when Harris and George are sculling and I am steering. To those who do contemplate making Oxford their starting place, I would say, take your own boat, unless, of course you can take someone else's without any possible danger of being found out. The boats that, as a rule, are let for hire on the Thames above Marlowe, are very good boats. They are fairly watertight, and, so long as they are handled with care, they rarely come to pieces or sink. There are places in them to sit down on, and they are complete with all the necessary arrangements, or nearly all, to enable you to row them and steer them.

But they are not ornamental. The boat you hire up the river above Marlowe is not the sort of boat. in which you can flash about and give yourself airs. The hired upriver boat very soon puts a stop to any nonsense of that sort on the part of its occupants. That is its chief, one may say its only, recommendation. The man in the hired upriver boat is modest and retiring. He likes to keep on the shady side, underneath the trees, and to do most of his travelling early in the morning or late at night

when there are not many people about on the river to look at him. When the man in the hired upriver boat sees anyone he knows, he gets out onto the bank and hides behind a tree. I was one of a party who hired an upriver boat one summer for a few days' trip. We had none of us ever seen the hired up river boat before, and we didn't know what it was when we did see it. We had written for a boat, a double-skulling skiff, and when we went down with our bags to the yard and gave our names,

the man said, "'Oh, yeah, you're the party who wrote for a double-sculling skiff. "'It's all right, Jim. Fetch round the pride of the Thames!' The boy went, and reappeared five minutes afterwards, struggling with an anti-deluvian chunk of wood, that looked as though it had been recently dug out of somewhere, and dug out carelessly, so as to have been unnecessarily damaged in the process. My own idea, on first catching sight of the object,

was that it was a Roman relic of some sort. Relic of what? I do not know. possibly of a coffin. The neighbourhood of the Upper Thames is rich in Roman relics, and Miser-Myers seem to me a very probable one, but our serious young man, who is a bit of a geologist, pooh-poohed my Roman relic theory, and said it was clear to the meanest intellect,

in which category he seemed to be grieved that he could not conscientiously include mine, that the thing the boy had found was the fossil of a whale, and he pointed out to us various evidences proving that it must have belonged to the pre-glacial period. To settle the dispute we appealed to the boy. We told him not to be afraid, but to speak the plain truth. Was it the fossil of a pre-adamite whale, or was it an early Roman coffin?

The boy said it was the pride of the Thames. We thought there's a very humorous answer on the part of the boy at first, and somebody gave him tuppence as a reward for his ready wit. But when he persisted in keeping up the joke, as we thought too long, we got vexed with him. Come, come, my lad, said our captain sharply. Don't let us have any nonsense. "'You take your mother's washing-tub home again and bring us a boat.'

The boat-builder himself came up then, and assured us, on his word as a practical man, that the thing really was a boat, was in fact the boat, the double-sculling skiff, selected to take us on our trip down the river. We grumbled a good deal. We thought he might at least have had it whitewashed or tarred, had something done to distinguish it from a bit of a wreck, but he couldn't see any fault in it. He even seemed offended at our remarks.

He said he had picked us out the best boat in all his stock, and he thought we might have been more grateful. He said it, the pride of the Thames, had been in use just as it now stood, or rather as it now hung together, for the last forty years to his knowledge, and nobody had complained of it before, and he did not see why we should be the first to begin. We argued no more. We fastened the so-called boat together with some pieces of string, got a bit of wallpaper, and pasted it over the shabbier places, said our prayer. and stepped on board. They charged us 35 shillings for the loan of the remnant for six days,

and we could have bought the thing out and out for four and sixpence at any sail of driftwood round the coast. The weather changed on the third day. Oh, I'm talking about our present trip now, and we started from Oxford upon our homeward journey in the midst of a steady drizzle. The river, with the sunlight flashing from its dancing wavelets, gilding gold the grey-green beech trunks, glinting through the dark cool wood-paths, chasing shadows or the shallows, flinging diamonds from the mill-wheels, throwing kisses to the lilies, wantoning with the wears white waters, silvering moss-grown walls and bridges, brightening every tiny townlet, making sweet each lane and meadow, lying tangled in the rushes, peeping, laughing from each inlet, gleaming gay on many a far sail, making soft the air with glory, is a golden fairy-strand.

dream. But the river, chill and weary, with the ceaseless raindrops falling on its brown and sluggish waters, with a sound as of a woman weeping low in some dark chamber, while the woods, all dark and silent, shrouded in their mists of vapour, stand like ghosts upon the margin, silent ghosts with eyes reproachful, like the ghosts of evil actions, like the ghosts of friends neglected, is a spirit-haunted water through the land of vain regrets. Sunlight is the life-blood of nature. Mother Earth looks at us with such dull, soulless eyes, when the sunlight has died away from out of her.

It makes us sad to be with her, then. She does not seem to know us or to care for us. She is, as a widow, who has lost the husband she loved, and her children touch her hand and look up into her eyes, but gain no smile from her. We rode on all that day through the rain, and very melancholy work it was. We pretended at first that we enjoyed it. We said it was a change, and that we liked to see the river under all its different aspects.

We said we could not expect to have it all sunshine, nor should we wish it. We told each other that nature was beautiful, even in her tears. Indeed, Harris and I were quite enthusiastic about the business for the first few hours, and we sang a song about a gypsy's life, and how delightful egypt's existence was, free to storm and sunshine and to every wind that blew, and how he enjoyed the rain, and what a lot of good it did him,

and how he laughed at people who didn't like it. George took the fun more soberly, and stuck to the umbrella. We hoisted the cover before we had lunch, and kept it up all the afternoon, just leaving a little space in the bow from which one of us could paddle and keep a lookout. In this way we made nine miles and pulled up for the night a little below dazed lock.

I cannot honestly say that we had a merry evening. The rain poured down with quiet persistency. Everything in the boat was damp and clammy. Supper was not a success. Cold veal pie, when you don't feel hungry, is apt to cloy. I felt I wanted white bait in a cutlet. Harris babbled a soles and white sauce, and passed the remains of his pie to Montmorency, who declined it,

and apparently insulted by the offer, went and sat over at the other end of the boat by himself. George requested that we would not talk about these things, at all events until he had finished his cold-boiled beef without mustard. We played Penny Knapp, after supper. We played for about an hour and a half, by the end of which time George had won fourpence. George always is lucky at cards, and Harris and I had lost exactly tuppence each.

We thought we would give up gambling then. As Harris said, it breeds an unhealthy excitement when carried too far. George offered to go on and give us our revenge, but Harris and I decided not to battle any further against fate. After that we mixed ourselves some toddy, and sat round and talked. George told us about a man he had known who had come up the river two years ago, and who had slept out in a damp boat on just such an ice.

other night as that was, and it had given him rheumatic fever, and nothing was able to save him, and he had died in great agony ten days afterwards. George said he was quite a young man, and was engaged to be married. He said it was one of the saddest things he had ever known. And that put Harris in mind of a friend of his, who had been in the volunteers, and who had slept out under canvas one night down at Aldershot, on just such another night as this, said Harris, and he had woke up in the morning a cripple for life. Harris said he would introduce us both to the man when we got back to town. It would make our hearts bleed to see him.

This naturally led to some pleasant chat about sciatica, fevers, chills, lung diseases and bronchitis. And Harris said how very awkward it would be if one of us were taken seriously ill in the night, seeing how far away we were from a doctor. There seemed to be a desire for something frolicsome to follow upon the, this conversation, and in a weak moment I suggested that George should get out his banjo and see if he could not give us a comic song. I will say for George that he did not want any pressing, there was no nonsense about having left his music at home or anything of that sort, he at once fished out his instrument and commenced to play Two Lovely Black Eyes. I had always regarded Two Lovely Black

Eyes as rather a commonplace tune until that evening. The rich vein of sadness that George extracted from it quite surprised me. The desire that grew upon Harris and myself, as the mournful strains progressed, was to fall upon each other's necks and a weep. But by great effort we kept back the rising tears, and listened to the wild, yearnful melody in silence. When the chorus came, we even made a desperate effort to be merry. We refilled our glasses and joined in. Harris, in her voice trembling with emotion leading and George and I following a few words behind. Two lovely black eyes. Oh, what a surprise!

Only for telling a man he was wrong. There we broke down. The unutterable pathos of George's accompaniment to that two we were in our then state of depression unable to bear. Harris sobbed like a little child, and the dog howled till I thought his heart, or his jaw must surely break. George wanted to go on with another verse. He thought that when we'd got a little more into the tune, and could throw more abandon, as it were, into the rendering, it might not seem so sad. The feeling of the majority, however, was opposed to the experiment.

There being nothing else to do, we went to bed. That is, we undressed ourselves, and tossed about at the bottom of the boat for some three or four hours, after which we managed to get some fitful slumber until 5am, when we all got up and had breakfast. The second day was exactly like the first. The rain continued to pour down, and we sat, wrapped up in our Macintoshes, underneath the canvas, and drifted slowly down.

One of us, I forget which one now, but I rather think it was myself, made a few feeble attempts during the course of the, the morning to work up the old gypsy foolishness about being children of nature and enjoying the wet, but it did not go down well at all, that, I care not for the rain, not I, was so painfully evident as expressing the sentiments of each of us that to sing it seemed unnecessary. On one point we were all agreed, and that was that, come what might, we would go through with this job to the bitter end. We had come out for a fortnight's enjoyment on the river, and

a fortnight's enjoyment on the river we meant to have. If it killed us, well, that would be a sad thing for our friends and relations, but it could not be helped. We felt that to give in to the weather in a climate such as ours would be a most disastrous precedent. It's only two days more, said Harris, and we are young and strong. We may get over it all right, after all. At about four o'clock, we began to discuss our arrangements for the evening. We were a little past goring then, and we decided to paddle onto Pangbourne, and put up there for the night. Another jolly evening, murmured George. We sat and mused on the prospect. We should be in at Pangbourne by five, we should finish dinner at, say, half-past six. After that,

we could walk about the village in the pouring rain until bedtime, or we could sit in a dimly lit bar parlour and read the almanac. "'Why, the Alhambra would be almost more lively,' said Harris, venturing his head outside the cover for a moment and taking a survey of the sky. "'With a little supper at the so-and-so to follow,' I added half-unconsciously, "'the-so being a capital little out-of-the-way restaurant, in the neighbourhood of such and such, "'where you can get one of the best-cooked and cheapest little French dinners or suppers that I know of, "'with an excellent bottle of bone, for three and six, and which I am not going to be, be idiot enough to advertise.

Yes, it's almost a pity that we've made up our minds to stick to this boat, answered Harris, and then there was silence for a while. If we hadn't made up our minds to contract our certain deaths in this Ballyol coffin, observed George, casting a glance of intense malevolence over the boat, it might be worthwhile to mention that there's a train leaves Pangbourne, I know, soon after five, which would just land us in town in comfortable time to get a child, and then go on to the place you mentioned afterwards. Nobody spoke.

We looked at one another, and each one seemed to see his own mean and guilty thoughts reflected in the faces of the others. In silence we dragged out and overhauled the Gladstone. We looked up the river and down the river. Not a soul was in sight. Twenty minutes later, three figures, followed by a shamed-looking dog,

might have been seen creeping stealthily from the river, stealthily from the boathouse at the Swan towards the railway station, dressed in the following, neither neat nor gaudy costume. Black leather shoes, dirty. Suit of boating flannels, very dirty. Brown felt hat, much battered. Macintosh, very wet. Umbrella.

We had deceived the boatman at Painebourne. We had not had the face to tell him that we were running away from the rain. We had left the boat, and all it contained. in his charge, with instructions that it was to be ready for us at nine o'clock the next morning. If we said, if anything unforeseen should happen, preventing our return, we would write to him. We reached Paddington at seven, and drove direct to the restaurant I have before described, where we partook of a light meal, left Montmorency, together with suggestions for a supper to be ready at half-past ten, and then continued our way to Leicester Square.

We attracted a good deal of attention at the Alhambra. On our presenting ourselves at the paybox, we were gruffly directed to go round to Castle Street, and we were informed that we were half an hour behind our time. We convinced the man, with some difficulty, that we were not the world-renowned contortionists from the Himalaya Mountains, and he took our money and let us pass. Inside, we were a still greater success.

Our fine bronzed countenances and picturesque clothes were followed round the place with admiring gaze. We were the sign-asurer of every eye. It was a proud moment for us all. We adjourned soon after the first ballet, and wended our way back to the restaurant, where supper was already awaiting us. I must confess to enjoying that supper. For about ten days we seemed to have been living, more or less, on nothing but cold meat, cake, and bread and jam. It had been as simple, and you'd be a simple, and you'd nutritious dart, but there had been nothing exciting about it, and the odour of burgundy and the smell of French sauces, and the sight of clean napkins and long loaves, knocked as a very

welcome visitor at the door of our inner man. We peaked and quaffed away in silence for a while, until the time came when, instead of sitting bolt upright and grasping the knife and fought firmly, we leant back in our chairs and worked slowly and carelessly. When we stood up to stretched out our legs beneath the table, let our napkins fall unheeded to the floor, and found time to more critically examine the smoky ceiling than we had hitherto been able to do, when we rested our glasses at arm's length upon the table,

and felt good, and thoughtful, and forgiving. Then Harris, who was sitting next to the window, drew aside the curtain and looked out upon the street. It glistened darkly, in the wet. The dim lamps flickered with each gust, the rain splashed steadily into the puddles, and trickled down the water spouts into the running gutters. A few soaked wayfarers hurried past, crouching beneath their dripping umbrellas, the women holding up their skirts. "'Well,' said Harris, reaching his hand out for his glass,

"'we have had a pleasant trip, and my hearty thanks for it to Old Father Thames. But I think we did well to chuck it when we did. Here's to three men well out of a boat. And Montmorency, standing on his hind legs before the window, peering out into the night, gave a short bark of decided concurrence with the toast. End of Chapter 19. And end of Three Men in a Boat to Say Nothing of the Dog by Jerome K. Jerome.