Harris said:
“How about when it rained?”
Camping out in rainy weather is not pleasant. We therefore decided that we would sleep out on fine nights; and in hotels and inns, like respectable folks, when it was wet. Montmorency approved this compromise. To look at Montmorency you would imagine that he was an angel sent upon the earth, for some reason in the shape of a small fox-terrier. When first he came to live with me, I never thought I should be able to have him long. I used to sit down and look at him, and think: “Oh, that dog will never live.” But I was wrong.
To hang about a stable, and collect a gang of the most disreputable dogs [24] to be found in the town, and lead them out to fight other disreputable dogs, is Montmorency’s idea of ‘life’.
Harris proposed that we should go out and get a drop of good Irish whiskey.
George said he felt thirsty (I never knew George when he didn’t); and we put on our hats and went out.
Chapter III
So, on the following evening, we again assembled, to discuss and arrange our plans. Harris said:
“Now we must discuss what to take with us. Now, you get a piece of paper and write down, J. [25], and you get the grocery catalogue, George, and I’ll make out a list.”
I said: “No; you get the paper, and the pencil, and the catalogue, and George write down, and I’ll do the work.”
“We must not think of the things we could do with [26], but only of the things that we can’t do without [27].”
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. You fix iron hoops up over the boat, and stretch a huge canvas over them, and fasten it down all round, and it converts the boat into a little house.
George said that in that case we must take a rug each, a lamp, some soap, a brush and comb (between us [28]), a tooth-brush (each), a basin, some tooth-powder, some shaving tackle, and a couple of big-towels for bathing. I notice that people always make gigantic arrangements for bathing when they are going anywhere near the water, but that they don’t bathe much when they are there.
George said it was so pleasant to wake up in the boat in the fresh morning, and plunge into the 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 Harris ordinarily ate, then he should protest against Harris having a bath at all.
Finally we decided to 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. Harris and I were weak enough to believe he knew what he was talking about, and that three respectable young men could really clean their own shirts and trousers in the river Thames with a bit of soap.
Later we found that George was a miserable impostor.
George forced us to take plenty of socks, in case we got upset [29]; also plenty of handkerchiefs, and a pair of leather boots as well as our boating shoes.
Chapter IV
Then we discussed the food question. George said:
“Begin with breakfast.” (George is so practical.) “Now for breakfast we need a frying-pan, a teapot and a kettle, and a methylated spirit stove [30].”
“No oil [31],” said George, with a significant look; and Harris and I agreed.
We had taken an oil-stove [32] once, but ‘never again’. We spent that week in an oil-shop. It oozed. We kept it in the nose of the boat, and, from there, it oozed down to the rudder, and it oozed over the river, 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.
We tried to get away from it at Marlow [33]. We left the boat by the bridge, and took a walk through the town to escape it, but it followed us. The whole town was full of oil. We passed through the church-yard, and it seemed as if the people had been buried in oil. The High Street [34] stunk of oil; we wondered how people could live in it.
At the end of that trip we took an awful oath never to take paraffine oil with us in a boat again.
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 gives a cheesy flavour to everything else. You can’t tell whether you are eating apple-pie or German sausage, or strawberries and cream. It all seems cheese. There is too much odour about cheese.
George suggested meat and fruit pies, cold meat, tomatoes, fruit, and green stuff. For drink, we took some wonderful sticky concoction of Harris’s, which you mixed with water and called lemonade, plenty of tea, and a bottle of whisky, in case, as George said, we got upset. But I’m glad we took the whisky.
We didn’t take beer or wine. They are a mistake up the river. They make you feel sleepy and heavy.
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 Friday, we got them all together, and met in the evening to pack. I said I’d pack.
I rather pride myself on my packing [35]. Packing is one of those many things that I feel I know more about than any other person.
I started the packing. It seemed a longer job than I had thought; but I got the bag finished at last, and I sat on it.
“Aren’t you going to put the boots in?” said Harris.
And I looked round, and found I had forgotten them. 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 tooth-brush?
My tooth-brush is a terrible thing, it makes my life a misery. While sleeping, I dream that I haven’t packed it, and wake up, and get out of bed and hunt for it. And, in the morning, I pack it before I have used it, and have to unpack again to get it. And then I repack and forget it, and I have to carry it to the railway station, wrapped up in my pocket handkerchief.
Of course, I could not find it. I took the things out of the suitcase. Of course, I found George’s and Harris’s eighteen times over, but I couldn’t find my own. 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 whether the soap was in or whether it wasn’t. But I found that I had packed my tobacco-pouch in it, and had to reopen it. Harris said that he and George had better do the rest; and I agreed and sat down.
They began. I made no comment; I only watched. They started with breaking a cup. That was the first thing they did. Then Harris packed the strawberry jam on top of a tomato and squashed it, and they had to pick out [36] the tomato with a teaspoon.
And then it was George’s turn, and he trod on the butter. I didn’t say anything,