steam-launch or a house-boat?"

[Picture: The bring of the provisions] 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 bumptiousness 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 river men.

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 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 mid-stream.

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 aground; everyone 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