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.
