6. People often load their boats of life with foolish things.
7. The friends decided to take a tent.
8. The narrator likes bathing.
9. George would like to dive in the morning.
10. Some fellows would wash friends flannel suits in the river.
2. Learn the words from the text:
agitation, nail, gradually, hammer, handkerchief, tool, grunt, thumb, toe, permit, sensible, wisdom, fasten, canvas, disadvantage, towel, evident, sufficient, remind, injured.
3. Practice the pronunciation of the following words.
4. Fill in the gaps using the words from the text.
1. Now, you get a bit of paper and write , J., and somebody give me a bit of pencil, and then I make out a list.
2. He could not find his handkerchief, because it was in the pocket of the coat he off, and he did not know where he put the coat.
3. Two people have to hold the chair, and a third help him up on it, and hold him there, and a fourth hand him a nail, and a fifth pass him up the hammer, and he take hold of the nail, and drop it.
4. Harris be just that sort of man when he up.
5. We must not think of the things we could do , but only of the things that we cant do .
6. I your pardon, really. I forgot.
7. We will have a boat with a cover. It is ever so much , and comfortable.
8. I not know whether you ever the thing I mean.
9. One huge wave catches me up and me in a sitting posture, hard ever it can, down on to a rock which put there for me.
10. Harris said there nothing a swim before breakfast to give you an appetite. He said it always him an appetite.
5. Match the words with definitions.
6. Find in the text the English equivalents for:
на следующий вечер, листок бумаги, сказать обиженным тоном, потерять из виду, поднимать шум, вовремя, записать, обходиться без чего-либо, бесполезный хлам, выбрасывать за борт, забегать вперед, на случай если.
7. Find the words in the text for which the following are synonyms:
next, arrange, begin, yell, hand (v), keep, beside, permit, fear, bathe.
8. Explain and expand on the following.
1. Thats Harris all over so ready to take the burden of everything himself, and put it on the backs of other people.
2. Harris always reminds me of my poor Uncle Podger.
3. Uncle Podger would gradually start the whole house.
4. The first list we made out had to be torn up.
5. Throw the lumber over, man!
6. We wont take a tent, suggested George.
7. I notice that people always make gigantic arrangements for bathing.
8. George said two suits of flannel would be sufficient.
9. Answer the following questions.
1. Who reminds of Uncle Podger? Why?
2. Does Uncle Podger need any help? What help does he need?
3. Why was the first list of things torn up?
4. What does the narrator say about our boats of life? What does he mean?
5. How will the friends manage to travel without a tent?
6. Does the narrator swim much when he goes to the sea-side? Why / why not?
7. Who protests against Harris having a bath? Why?
8. Why did George withdraw his opposition?
9. Why would two suits of flannel be sufficient?
10. What set of things did the friends decide to take?
10. Retell the chapter for the persons of the narrator, George, Uncle Podger, Aunt Maria.
CHAPTER IV
Then we discussed the food question. George said:
Begin with breakfast. (George is so practical.) Now for breakfast we shall want a frying pan (Harris said it was indigestible) a tea-pot and a kettle, and a methylated spirit stove.
No oil, said George, with a significant look; and Harris and I agreed.
We had taken up an oil-stove once, but never again. It had been like living in an oil-shop that week. It oozed. We kept it in the nose of the boat, and, from there, it oozed down, filling up the whole boat and everything in it on its way, and it oozed over the river, and saturated the scenery and spoilt the atmosphere. Sometimes a westerly oily wind blew, and at other times an easterly oily wind, and sometimes it blew a northerly oily wind, and maybe a southerly oily wind. At the end of that trip we met together at midnight in a lonely field, under an oak, and took an awful oath never to take paraffine oil with us in a boat again. Therefore, in the present instance, we agreed on methylated spirit. Even that is bad enough. You get methylated pie and methylated cake.
For other breakfast things, George suggested eggs and bacon, which were easy to cook, cold meat, tea, bread and butter, and jam. For lunch, he said, we could have biscuits, cold meat, bread and butter, and jam but no cheese. Cheese, like oil, makes too much of itself.42 It wants the whole boat to itself. It gives a cheesy flavour to everything else there. You cant tell whether you are eating apple-pie or German sausage, or strawberries and cream. It all seems cheese. There is too much odour about cheese.
I remember a friend of mine, buying a couple of cheeses at Liverpool. Splendid cheeses they were, ripe and mellow, and with a strong scent about them that might have knocked a man over at two hundred yards43. I was in Liverpool at the time, and my friend asked me to take them to London.
Oh, with pleasure, dear boy, I replied, with pleasure.
I called for the cheeses, and took them away in a cab. The cab was very old, dragged along by a sick somnambulist, which his owner, in a moment of enthusiasm, during conversation, called a horse. I put the cheeses on the top, and we started off and all went merry as a funeral bell, until we turned the corner. There, the wind carried a whiff from the cheeses on to our horse. It woke him up, and, with a snort of terror, he dashed off at three miles an hour. It took two porters as well as the driver to hold him in at the station; and I do not think they would have done it, if one of the men hadnt put a handkerchief over the horses nose, and lit a bit of brown paper.
I took my ticket, and marched proudly up the platform, with my cheeses, the people falling back respectfully on either side. The train was crowded, and I had to get into a carriage where there were already seven other people. One grumpy old gentleman objected, but I got in; and, putting my cheeses upon the shelf, squeezed down with a pleasant smile, and said it was a warm day.
A few moments passed, and then the old gentleman began to fidget.
Very close in here, he said.
Quite oppressive,44 said the man next to him.
And then they both began sniffing, and, at the third sniff, they caught it right on the chest, and rose up without another word and went out. And then a plump lady got up, and said it was disgraceful that a respectable married woman should be treated in this way, and gathered up a bag and eight parcels and went. Then the other three passengers tried to get out of the door at the same time, and hurt themselves.
I smiled at the black gentleman, and said I thought we were going to have the carriage to ourselves; and he laughed pleasantly, and said that some people made such a fuss over a little thing. But even he grew strangely depressed after we had started, and so, when we reached Crewe, I asked him to come and have a drink. He accepted, and we forced our way into the buffet, where we yelled, and stamped, and waved our umbrellas for a quarter of an hour; and then a young lady came, and asked us if we wanted anything.
What would you like to drink? I said, turning to my friend.
Ill have half-a-crowns worth of brandy, neat, if you please, miss,45 he responded.
And he went off quietly after he had drunk it and got into another carriage, which I thought mean.
From Crewe I had the compartment to myself, though the train was crowded. As we drew up at the different stations, the people, seeing my empty carriage, would rush for it. Here you are, Maria; come along, plenty of room. All right, Tom; well get in here, they would shout. And they would run along, carrying heavy bags, and fight round the door to get in first. And one would open the door and mount the steps, and fall back into the arms of the man behind him; and they would all come and have a sniff, and then go away and squeeze into other carriages, or pay the difference and go first46.
From Euston, I took the cheeses down to my friends house. When his wife came into the room she smelt round for an instant. Then she said:
What is it? Tell me the worst.
I said:
Its cheeses. Tom bought them in Liverpool, and asked me to bring them up with me.
And I added that I hoped she understood that it had nothing to do with me; and she said that she was sure of that, but that she would speak to Tom about it when he came back.
My friend was detained in Liverpool longer than he expected; and, three days later, as he hadnt returned home, his wife called on me. She said:
What did Tom say about those cheeses?
I replied that he had directed they were to be kept in a moist place, and that nobody was to touch them.
She said:
Nobodys likely to touch them. Had he smelt them?
I thought he had, and added that he seemed greatly attached to them.
You think he would be upset, she asked, if I gave a man a sovereign47 to take them away and bury them?
I answered that I thought he would never smile again. An idea struck her. She said:
Do you mind keeping them for him? Let me send them round to you.
Madam, I replied, for myself I like the smell of cheese, and the journey the other day with them from Liverpool I shall ever look back upon as a happy ending to a pleasant holiday. But, in this world, we must consider others. The lady under whose roof I have the hon-our of living is a widow, and, for all I know, possibly an orphan too. She has a strong objection to being what she terms put upon48. The presence of your husbands cheeses in her house she would, I instinctively feel, regard as a put upon; and it shall never be said that I put upon the widow and the orphan.
Very well, then, said my friends wife, rising, all I have to say is, that I shall take the children and go to a hotel until those cheeses are eaten. I refuse to live any longer in the same house with them.
She kept her word, leaving the place in charge of the housemaid, who, when asked if she could stand the smell, replied, What smell? and who, when taken close to the cheeses and told to sniff hard, said she could detect a faint odour of melons.
The hotel bill came to fifteen guineas49; and my friend, after thinking everything over, found that the cheeses had cost him eight-and-sixpence a pound. He said he dearly loved a bit of cheese, but it was beyond his means50; so he determined to get rid of them. He threw them into the canal; but had to fish them out again, as the bargemen complained. They said it made them feel quite sick. And, after that, he took them one dark night and left them in the parish morgue. But the coroner discovered them, and said it was a plot to deprive him of his living51 by waking up the corpses. My friend got rid of them, at last, by taking them down to a sea-side town, and burying them on the beach.
Fond as I am of cheese, therefore, I considered that George was right in declining to take any.
We shant52 want any tea, said George (Harriss face fell at this); but well have a good round, square, fabulous meal at seven dinner, tea, and supper combined.
Harris grew more cheerful. George suggested meat and fruit pies, cold meat, tomatoes, fruit, and green stuff. For drink, we took some wonderful sticky mixture of Harriss, in which you added some water and called it lemonade, plenty of tea, and a bottle of whisky, in case, as George said, we got upset.
We didnt take beer or wine. They are a mistake up the river. They make you feel sleepy and heavy. A glass in the evening when you are wandering round the town and looking at the girls is all right enough; but dont drink when the sun is blazing down on your head, and youve got hard work to do.
We made a list of the things to be taken, and a pretty lengthy one it was. The next day, which was Friday, we got them all together, and met in the evening to pack. We moved the table up against the window, piled everything in a heap in the middle of the floor, and sat round and looked at it.
I said Id pack.
I rather pride myself on my packing. Packing is one of those many things that I feel I know more about than any other person living. I impressed the fact upon George and Harris, and told them that they had better leave the whole matter entirely to me. They fell into the suggestion with a readiness. George put on a pipe and spread himself over the armchair, and Harris put his legs on the table and lit a cigar.
This was hardly what I intended. What I had meant, of course, was, that I should boss the job, and that Harris and George should potter about under my directions, I pushing them aside every now and then with, Oh, you ! Here, let me do it. There you are, simple enough! really teaching them, as you might say. Their taking it in the way they did irritated me. Nothing irritates me more than seeing other people sitting about doing nothing when Im working. I cant sit still and see another man slaving and working. I want to get up and superintend, and walk round with my hands in my pockets, and tell him what to do. It is my energetic nature. I cant help it.
However, I did not say anything, but started the packing. It seemed a longer job than I had thought it was going to be; but I got the bag finished at last, and I sat on it and strapped it.
Arent you going to put the boots in? said Harris. And I looked round, and found I had forgotten them. Thats just like Harris. He couldnt have said a word until Id got the bag shut and strapped, of course. And George laughed one of those irritating, senseless laughs of his. They do make me so wild.
I opened the bag and packed the boots in; and then, just as I was going to close it, a horrible idea occurred to me. Had I packed my tooth-brush? I dont know how it is, but I never do know whether Ive packed my tooth-brush.
My tooth-brush is a thing that haunts me when Im travelling, and makes my life a misery. I dream that I havent packed it, and wake up, and get out of bed and hunt for it. And, in the morning, I pack it before I have used it, and have to unpack again to get it, and it is always the last thing I turn out of the bag; and then I repack and forget it, and have to rush upstairs for it at the last moment and carry it to the railway station, wrapped up in my pocket-handkerchief.