One or two
friends, worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat,
a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little
more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing.
You will find the boat easier to pull then, and it will not be so liable
to upset, and it will not matter so much if it does upset; good, plain
merchandise will stand water. You will have time to think as well as to
work. Time to drink in life's sunshine - time to listen to the AEolian
music that the wind of God draws from the human heart-strings around us -
time to -
I beg your pardon, really. I quite forgot.
Well, we left the list to George, and he began it.
"We won't take a tent, suggested George; "we will have a boat with a
cover. It is ever so much simpler, and more comfortable."
It seemed a good thought, and we adopted it. I do not know whether you
have ever seen the thing I mean. You fix iron hoops up over the boat,
and stretch a huge canvas over them, and fasten it down all round, from
stem to stern, and it converts the boat into a sort of little house, and
it is beautifully cosy, though a trifle stuffy; but there, everything has
its drawbacks, as the man said when his mother-in-law died, and they came
down upon him for the funeral expenses.
