We took up the hoops, and began to drop them into the sockets placed for
them. You would not imagine this to be dangerous work; but, looking back
now, the wonder to me is that any of us are alive to tell the tale. They
were not hoops, they were demons. First they would not fit into their
sockets at all, and we had to jump on them, and kick them, and hammer at
them with the boat-hook; and, when they were in, it turned out that they
were the wrong hoops for those particular sockets, and they had to come
out again.
But they would not come out, until two of us had gone and struggled with
them for five minutes, when they would jump up suddenly, and try and
throw us into the water and drown us. They had hinges in the middle,
and, when we were not looking, they nipped us with these hinges in
delicate parts of the body; and, while we were wrestling with one side of
the hoop, and endeavouring to persuade it to do its duty, the other side
would come behind us in a cowardly manner, and hit us over the head.
We got them fixed at last, and then all that was to be done was to
arrange the covering over them. George unrolled it, and fastened one end
over the nose of the boat. Harris stood in the middle to take it from
George and roll it on to me, and I kept by the stern to receive it. It
was a long time coming down to me. George did his part all right, but it
was new work to Harris, and he bungled it.
How he managed it I do not know, he could not explain himself; but by
some mysterious process or other he succeeded, after ten minutes of
superhuman effort, in getting himself completely rolled up in it. He was
so firmly wrapped round and tucked in and folded over, that he could not
get out. He, of course, made frantic struggles for freedom - the
birthright of every Englishman, - and, in doing so (I learned this
afterwards), knocked over George; and then George, swearing at Harris,
began to struggle too, and got himself entangled and rolled up.
I knew nothing about all this at the time. I did not understand the
business at all myself. I had been told to stand where I was, and wait
till the canvas came to me, and Montmorency and I stood there and waited,
both as good as gold. We could see the canvas being violently jerked and
tossed about, pretty considerably; but we supposed this was part of the
method, and did not interfere.
We also heard much smothered language coming from underneath it, and we
guessed that they were finding the job rather troublesome, and concluded
that we would wait until things had got a little simpler before we joined
in.
We waited some time, but matters seemed to get only more and more
involved, until, at last, George's head came wriggling out over the side
of the boat, and spoke up.
It said:
"Give us a hand here, can't you, you cuckoo; standing there like a
stuffed mummy, when you see we are both being suffocated, you dummy!"
I never could withstand an appeal for help, so I went and undid them; not
before it was time, either, for Harris was nearly black in the face.
It took us half an hour's hard labour, after that, before it was properly
up, and then we cleared the decks, and got out supper. We put the kettle
on to boil, up in the nose of the boat, and went down to the stern and
pretended to take no notice of it, but set to work to get the other
things out.
That is the only way to get a kettle to boil up the river. If it sees
that you are waiting for it and are anxious, it will never even sing.
You have to go away and begin your meal, as if you were not going to have
any tea at all. You must not even look round at it. Then you will soon
hear it sputtering away, mad to be made into tea.
It is a good plan, too, if you are in a great hurry, to talk very loudly
to each other about how you don't need any tea, and are not going to have
any. You get near the kettle, so that it can overhear you, and then you
shout out, "I don't want any tea; do you, George?" to which George shouts
back, "Oh, no, I don't like tea; we'll have lemonade instead - tea's so
indigestible." Upon which the kettle boils over, and puts the stove out.
We adopted this harmless bit of trickery, and the result was that, by the
time everything else was ready, the tea was waiting. Then we lit the
lantern, and squatted down to supper.
We wanted that supper.
For five-and-thirty minutes not a sound was heard throughout the length
and breadth of that boat, save the clank of cutlery and crockery, and the
steady grinding of four sets of molars. At the end of five-and-thirty
minutes, Harris said, "Ah!" and took his left leg out from under him and
put his right one there instead.
Five minutes afterwards, George said, "Ah!" too, and threw his plate out
on the bank; and, three minutes later than that, Montmorency gave the
first sign of contentment he had exhibited since we had started, and
rolled over on his side, and spread his legs out; and then I said, "Ah!"
and bent my head back, and bumped it against one of the hoops, but I did
not mind it. I did not even swear.
How good one feels when one is full - how satisfied with ourselves and
with the world!
