y 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, in 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 Harris,
began to struggle too, and got _himself_ entangled and rolled up.

[Picture: Watching and waiting] 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
Montmorency 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 supposed 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