Three Men in a Boat — BG

CHAPTER 4

The food ques­tion – Objec­tions to paraf­fine oil as an atmos­phere – Advan­tages of cheese as a trav­el­ling com­pan­ion – A mar­ried woman deserts her home – Fur­ther pro­vi­sion for get­ting upset – I pack – Cussed­ness 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 tea-pot 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, but “nev­er again.” It had been like liv­ing in an oil-shop that week. It oozed. I nev­er saw such a thing as paraf­fine oilis 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 oilywind; but whether it came from the Arc­tic snows, or was raised in the waste of the desert sands, it came alike to us laden with the fra­grance of paraf­fine oil.

And that oil oozed up and ruined the sun­set; and as for the moon­beams, they pos­i­tive­ly reeked of paraf­fine.

We tried to get away from it at Mar­low. 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 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 paraf­fine oil with us in a boat again – except, of course, in case of sickness.

There­fore, in the present instance, we con­fined our­selves to methy­lat­ed spir­it. Even that 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 paraf­fine 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 a cheesy flavour to every­thing else there. 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.

I remem­ber a friend of mine, buy­ing a cou­ple of cheeses at Liv­er­pool. Splen­did cheeses they were, ripe and mel­low, and with a two hun­dred horse-pow­er scent 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 knock-kneed, bro­ken-wind­ed som­nam­bu­list, 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 mer­ry as a funer­al bell, until we turned the cor­ner. There, the wind car­ried a whiff from the cheeses full on at to our steed. It 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 before 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 ladies 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, 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 respect­ful­ly 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 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 parcels 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, 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 Crewe, 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 us if we want­ed anything.

“What’s yours?” I said, 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 Crewe 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 y’ 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 stag­ger back into the arms of the man behind him; and they would all come and have a sniff, and then droop off and squeeze into oth­er car­riages, or pay the dif­fer­ence and go first.

From Euston, 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 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,” she queried, “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 him? 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 put upon the wid­ow and the orphan.”

“Very well, then,” said my friend’s wife, ris­ing, “all I have to say is, that I shall take the chil­dren and go 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 char­woman, who, when asked if she could stand the smell, replied, “What smell?” and who, when tak­en close to the cheeses and told to sniff hard, 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 sea-side 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 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.

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 whisky.

We didn’t take beer or wine. They are a mis­take up the riv­er. They make you feel sleepy and heavy. A glass in the evening when you are doing a mouch 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 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 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 these 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 cocked 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 should pot­ter about under my direc­tions, I push­ing them aside every now and then with, “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 does irri­tate me more than see­ing oth­er peo­ple sit­ting about doing noth­ing when I’m working.

I lived with a man once who used to make me mad that way. He would loll 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 had 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?” said Harris.

And I looked round, and found I had for­got­ten them. That’s just like Har­ris. He couldn’t have said a word until I’d 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 tooth-brush? I don’t know how it is, but I nev­er do know whether I’ve packed my tooth-brush.

My tooth-brush is a thing that haunts me when I’m trav­el­ling, and makes my life a mis­ery. I dream that I haven’t packed it, and wake up in a cold per­spi­ra­tion, 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 it is 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 every mor­tal thing out now, and, of course, I could not find it. I rum­maged the things up into much the same state that they must have been before the world was cre­at­ed, and when chaos reigned. Of course, I found George’s and Harris’s eigh­teen 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 to and strapped it, and found that I had packed my tobac­co-pouch in it, and had to re-open it. It got shut up final­ly at 10.5 p.m., and then there remained the ham­pers to do. Har­ris said that we should be want­i­ng to start in less than twelve 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 ket­tles, and bot­tles and jars, and pies, and stoves, and cakes, and toma­toes, &ampc., and felt that the thing 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 over every­thing, and as for the but­ter! I nev­er saw two men do more with one-and-twopence worth of but­ter in my whole life than they did. After George had got it off his slip­per, they 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 Har­ris 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, star­ing 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; and then they met again in the cen­tre, and stared 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 under the fixed belief that, when­ev­er Har­ris or George reached out their hand for any­thing, it was his cold, damp nose that they want­ed. He put his leg into the jam, and he wor­ried the tea­spoons, and he pre­tend­ed that the lemons were rats, and got into the ham­per and killed three of them 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, J.?”

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.

“Wake us at 6.30, 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 bath where he could tum­ble into it on get­ting out in the morn­ing, and went to bed ourselves.