g 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 herculean. 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; "leggo, 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.

"Ah, the bally idiot!" you hear him mutter to himself; and then comes a
savage haul, 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 baling 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
blazes you're playing at, and why the blarmed 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
spirit stove, and crowd round that.

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 m