Jerome Jerome: THREE MEN IN A BOAT

«Where?» cried Harris, spinning round.

«Stand still, can't you!» roared George, flying after him.

And they got it off, and packed it in the teapot.

Montmorency was in it all, of course. Montmorency's ambition in life, is to get in the way and be sworn at. If he can squirm in anywhere where he particularly is not wanted, and be a perfect nuisance, and make people mad, and have things thrown at his head, then he feels his day has not been wasted.

To get somebody to stumble over him, and curse him steadily for an hour, is his highest aim and object; and, when he has succeeded in accomplishing this, his conceit becomes quite unbearable.

He came and sat down on things, just when they were wanted to be packed; and he laboured under the fixed belief that, whenever Harris or George reached out their hand for anything, it was his cold, damp nose that they wanted. He put his leg into the jam, and he worried the teaspoons, and he pretended that the lemons were rats, and got into the hamper and killed three of them before Harris could land him with the frying–pan.

Harris said I encouraged him. I didn't encourage him. A dog like that don't want any encouragement. It's the natural, original sin that is born in him that makes him do things like that.

The packing was done at 12.50; and Harris sat on the big hamper, and said he hoped nothing would be found broken. George said that if anything was broken it was broken, which reflection seemed to comfort him. He also said he was ready for bed.

We were all ready for bed. Harris was to sleep with us that night, and we went upstairs.

We tossed for beds, and Harris had to sleep with me. He said: «Do you prefer the inside or the outside, J.?»

I said I generally preferred to sleep INSIDE a bed.

Harris said it was old.

George said: «What time shall I wake you fellows?»

Harris said: «Seven.»

I said: «No — six,» because I wanted to write some letters.

Harris and I had a bit of a row over it, but at last split the difference, and said half–past six.

«Wake us at 6.30, George,» we said.

George made no answer, and we found, on going over, that he had been asleep for some time; so we placed the bath where he could tumble into it on getting out in the morning, and went to bed ourselves.

MRS. P. AROUSES US. — GEORGE, THE SLUGGARD. — THE «WEATHER FORECAST» SWINDLE. — OUR LUGGAGE. — DEPRAVITY OF THE SMALL BOY. — THE PEOPLE GATHER ROUND US. — WE DRIVE OFF IN GREAT STYLE, AND ARRIVE AT WATERLOO. — INNOCENCE OF SOUTH WESTERN OFFICIALS CONCERNING SUCH WORLDLY THINGS AS TRAINS. — WE ARE AFLOAT, AFLOAT IN AN OPEN BOAT.

IT was Mrs. Poppets that woke me up next morning.

She said: «Do you know that it's nearly nine o'clock, sir?»

«Nine o' what?» I cried, starting up.

«Nine o'clock,» she replied, through the keyhole. «I thought you was a–oversleeping yourselves.»

I woke Harris, and told him. He said: «I thought you wanted to get up at six?»

«So I did,» I answered; «why didn't you wake me?»

«How could I wake you, when you didn't wake me?» he retorted. «Now we shan't get on the water till after twelve. I wonder you take the trouble to get up at all.»

«Um,» I replied, «lucky for you that I do. If I hadn't woke you, you'd have lain there for the whole fortnight.»

We snarled at one another in this strain for the next few minutes, when we were interrupted by a defiant snore from George.

It reminded us, for the first time since our being called, of his existence.

There he lay — the man who had wanted to know what time he should wake us — on his back, with his mouth wide open, and his knees stuck up.

I don't know why it should be, I am sure; but the sight of another man asleep in bed when I am up, maddens me. It seems to me so shocking to see the precious hours of a man's life — the priceless moments that will never come back to him again — being wasted in mere brutish sleep.

There was George, throwing away in hideous sloth the inestimable gift of time; his valuable life, every second of which he would have to account for hereafter, passing away from him, unused. He might have been up stuffing himself with eggs and bacon, irritating the dog, or flirting with the slavey, instead of sprawling there, sunk in soul–clogging oblivion.

It was a terrible thought. Harris and I appeared to be struck by it at the same instant. We determined to save him, and, in this noble resolve, our own dispute was forgotten. We flew across and slung the clothes off him, and Harris landed him one with a slipper, and I shouted in his ear, and he awoke.

«Wasermarrer?» he observed, sitting up.

«Get up, you fat–headed chunk!» roared Harris. «It's quarter to ten.»

«What!» he shrieked, jumping out of bed into the bath; «Who the thunder put this thing here?»

We told him he must have been a fool not to see the bath.

We finished dressing, and, when it came to the extras, we remembered that we had packed the tooth–brushes and the brush and comb (that tooth–brush of mine will be the death of me, I know), and we had to go downstairs, and fish them out of the bag. And when we had done that George wanted the shaving tackle. We told him that he would have to go without shaving that morning, as we weren't going to unpack that bag again for him, nor for anyone like him.

He said: «Don't be absurd. How can I go into the City like this?»

It was certainly rather rough on the City, but what cared we for human suffering? As Harris said, in his common, vulgar way, the City would have to lump it.

We went downstairs to breakfast. Montmorency had invited two other dogs to come and see him off, and they were whiling away the time by fighting on the doorstep. We calmed them with an umbrella, and sat down to chops and cold beef.

Harris said: «The great thing is to make a good breakfast,» and he started with a couple of chops, saying that he would take these while they were hot, as the beef could wait.

George got hold of the paper, and read us out the boating fatalities, and the weather forecast, which latter prophesied «rain, cold, wet to fine» (whatever more than usually ghastly thing in weather that may be), «occasional local thunder–storms, east wind, with general depression over the Midland Counties (London and Channel). Bar. falling.»

I do think that, of all the silly, irritating tomfoolishness by which we are plagued, this «weather–forecast» fraud is about the most aggravating. It «forecasts» precisely what happened yesterday or a the day before, and precisely the opposite of what is going to happen to–day.

I remember a holiday of mine being completely ruined one late autumn by our paying attention to the weather report of the local newspaper. «Heavy showers, with thunderstorms, may be expected to–day,» it would say on Monday, and so we would give up our picnic, and stop indoors all day, waiting for the rain. — And people would pass the house, going off in wagonettes and coaches as jolly and merry as could be, the sun shining out, and not a cloud to be seen.

«Ah!» we said, as we stood looking out at them through the window, «won't they come home soaked!»

And we chuckled to think how wet they were going to get, and came back and stirred the fire, and got our books, and arranged our specimens of seaweed and cockle shells. By twelve o'clock, with the sun pouring into the room, the heat became quite oppressive, and we wondered when those heavy showers and occasional thunderstorms were going to begin.

«Ah! they'll come in the afternoon, you'll find,» we said to each other.

«Oh, WON'T those people get wet. What a lark!»

At one o'clock, the landlady would come in to ask if we weren't going out, as it seemed such a lovely day.