boat in the rain]

Indeed, Harris and I were quite enthusiastic about the business, for the
first few hours. And we sang a song about a gipsy's life, and how
delightful a gipsy's existence was!--free to storm and sunshine, and to
every wind that blew!--and how he enjoyed the rain, and what a lot of
good it did him; and how he laughed at people who didn't like it.

George took the fun more soberly, and stuck to the umbrella.

We hoisted the cover before we had lunch, and kept it up all the
afternoon, just leaving a little space in the bow, from which one of us
could paddle and keep a look-out. In this way we made nine miles, and
pulled up for the night a little below Day's Lock.

I cannot honestly say that we had a merry evening. The rain poured down
with quiet persistency. Everything in the boat was damp and clammy.
Supper was not a success. Cold veal pie, when you don't feel hungry, is
apt to cloy. I felt I wanted whitebait and a cutlet; Harris babbled of
soles and white-sauce, and passed the remains of his pie to Montmorency,
who declined it, and, apparently insulted by the offer, went and sat over
at the other end of the boat by himself.

George requested that we would not talk about these things, at all events
until he had finished his cold boiled beef without mustard.

We played penny nap after supper. We played for about an hour and a
half, by the end of which time George had won fourpence--George always is
lucky at cards--and Harris and I had lost exactly twopence each.

We thought we would give up gambling then. As Harris said, it breeds an
unhealthy excitement when carried too far. George offered to go on and
give us our revenge; but Harris and I decided not to battle any further
against Fate.

After that, we mixed ourselves some toddy, and sat round and talked.
George told us about a man he had known, who had come up the river two
years ago and who had slept out in a damp boat on just such another night
as that was, and it had given him rheumatic fever, and nothing was able
to save him, and he had died in great agony ten days afterwards. George
said he was quite a young man, and was engaged to be married. He said it
was one of the saddest things he had ever known.

And that put Harris in mind of a friend of his, who had been in the
Volunteers, and who had slept out under canvas one wet night down at
Aldershot, "on just such another night as this," said Harris; and he had
woke up in the mor