on strong springs, and
their waistcoats developed themselves in the usual places. When the
first hamper came out of the luggage-van, I was conscious of their
dancing behind the guard; when the second came out with bottles in it,
they all stood wildly on one leg. We then got a couple of flys to drive
to the boat-house. I put them in the first, but they couldn't sit still
a moment, and were perpetually flying up and down like the toy figures
in the sham snuff-boxes. In this order we went on to "Tom Brown's, the
tailor's," where they all dressed in aquatic costume, and then to the
boat-house, where they all cried in shrill chorus for "Mahogany"--a
gentleman, so called by reason of his sunburnt complexion, a waterman by
profession. (He was likewise called during the day "Hog" and "Hogany,"
and seemed to be unconscious of any proper name whatsoever.) We
embarked, the sun shining now, in a galley with a striped awning, which
I had ordered for the purpose, and all rowing hard, went down the river.
We dined in a field; what I suffered for fear those boys should get
drunk, the struggles I underwent in a contest of feeling between
hospitality and prudence, must ever remain untold. I feel, even now, old
with the anxiety of that tremendous hour. They were very good, however.
The speech of one became thick, and his eyes too like lobsters' to be
comfortable, but only temporarily. He recovered, and I suppose outlived
the salad he took. I have heard nothing to the contrary, and I imagine I
should have been implicated on the inquest if there had been one. We had
tea and rashers of bacon at a public-house, and came home, the last five
or six miles in a prodigious thunderstorm. This was the great success of
the day, which they certainly enjoyed more than anything else. The
dinner had been great, and Mahogany had informed them, after a bottle of
light champagne, that he never would come up the river "with ginger
company" any more. But the getting so completely wet through was the
culminating part of the entertainment. You never in your life saw such
objects as they were; and their perfect unconsciousness that it was at
all advisable to go home and change, or that there was anything to
prevent their standing at the station two mortal hours to see me off,
was wonderful. As to getting them to their dames with any sort of sense
that they were damp, I abandoned the idea. I thought it a success when
they went down the street as civilly as if they