There were four of us – George, and William Samuel Harris,[1] and myself, and Montmorency.[2] We were sitting in my room, smoking, and talking about how bad we were – bad from a medical point of view, of course.

We were all feeling bad, and we were quite nervous about it. Harris said he had such a very bad headache that he hardly knew what he was doing. And then George said that he had a headache too. As for me, it was my liver that was out of order. I read about the various symptoms of a sick liver in a circular that offered liverpills. I had them all.

It is a most extraordinary thing, but when I read a medicine advertisement I usually come to the conclusion that I am suffering from the disease that was described.

One day I went to the British Museum to read about hay fever,[3] I fancy I had it.[4] I took the book, and read all I needed; and then I idly turned the leaves, and began to study diseases, generally. Immediately I understood that I had some fearful, devastating illness.

I sat for a while, frozen with horror; and then, in despair, I again turned over the pages. I came to typhoid fever[5] – read the symptoms – discovered that I had typhoid fever, must have had it for months without knowing it – wondered what else I had got; turned up St. Vitus’s Dance[6] – found, as I expected, that I had that too, – and so started alphabetically. I had every malady they wrote about! The only malady I had not got was housemaid’s knee.[7]

I felt rather hurt about this at first. Why hadn’t I got housemaid’s knee? After a while, however, I reflected that I had every other known malady in the pharmacology, and I grew less selfish, and determined to do without housemaid’s knee.

There were no more diseases after zymosis,[8] so I concluded there was nothing else the matter with me.[9]

I thought what an interesting case I must be from a medical point of view! Students would have no need to ‘walk the hospitals’, if they had me. I was a hospital in myself. All they need do would be to walk round me, and, after that, take their diploma.

Then I wondered how long I had to live. I tried to examine myself. I felt my pulse. I could not at first feel any pulse at all. Then, all of a sudden, it seemed to start off.[10] I pulled out my watch. I made it a hundred and forty-seven to the minute. I tried to feel my heart. I could not feel my heart. It had stopped beating. I could not feel or hear anything. I had walked into that reading-room a happy, healthy man. I crawled out a decrepit wreck.[11]

I went to my doctor. He is an old friend of mine, and feels my pulse, and looks at my tongue, and talks about the weather. “What a doctor wants,” I said, “is practice. He shall have me.” So he said:

“Well, what’s the matter with you?”

I said:

“I will not take up your time with telling you what is the matter with me. But I will tell you what is not the matter with me. I have not got housemaid’s knee. Why I have not got housemaid’s knee, I cannot tell you; but the fact remains that I have not got it. Everything else, however, I have got.”

Then he examined me, and then he hit me over the chest when I wasn’t expecting it. After that, he sat down and wrote out a prescription, and folded it up and gave it me, and I put it in my pocket and went out.

I did not open it. I took it to the nearest chemist’s,[12] and handed it in. The man read it, and then handed it back.

I read the prescription. It said:

“1 lb.[13] beefsteak, with 1 pt.[14] bitter beer every 6 hours.

1 ten-mile walk every morning.

1 bed at 11 sharp every night.”

I followed the directions, with the happy result – my life was saved, and is still going on.

But going back to the liver-pill circular, I had the symptoms, beyond all mistake, the chief among them being ‘a general disinclination to work of any kind[15]’.

What I suffer in that way no tongue can tell.[16] From my earliest infancy I have been a martyr to it. As a boy, the disease hardly ever left me for a day. My family did not know, then, that it was my liver. Medical science was in a far less advanced state than now, and they thought it was laziness.

“Are you still sleeping,” they would say, “get up and do something for your living, can’t you?” – not knowing, of course, that I was ill.

We sat there for half-an-hour, describing to each other our maladies. I explained to George and William Harris how I felt when I got up in the morning, and William Harris told us how he felt when he went to bed; and George told us how he felt in the night.

Suddenly, Mrs. Poppets[17] knocked at the door to know if we were ready for supper. We smiled sadly, and decided to eat a little.

I seemed to take no interest in my food – an unusual thing for me – and I didn’t want any cheese.

We refilled our glasses, lit our pipes, and resumed the discussion upon our state of health.

“What we want is rest,” said Harris.

“Rest and a complete change,” said George. “The overstrain upon our brains has produced a general depression. Changes and absence of the necessity for thought will restore the mental equilibrium.”

“If you want rest and change,” said Harris, “let’s make a sea trip.”

I objected to the sea trip strongly. I was afraid for George. George said that he felt sure we should both be ill.

It is a curious fact, but nobody ever is seasick – on land. At sea, you come across[18] plenty of people very bad indeed, whole boat of them; but I never met a man yet, on land, who had ever known at all what it was to be sea-sick.

For myself,[19] I have discovered an excellent preventive against sea-sickness, in balancing myself. You stand in the centre of the deck, and you move your body about, so as to keep it always straight. When the front of the ship rises, you lean forward, till the deck almost touches your nose; and when its back end gets up, you lean backwards. This is all very well for an hour or two; but you can’t balance yourself for a week.

George said:

“Let’s go up the river.”

He said we should have fresh air, exercise and quiet; and the hard work would give us a good appetite, and make us sleep well.

Harris said he didn’t think George ought to do anything that would make him sleepier than he always was, as it might be dangerous. He might just as well be dead, and so save his board and lodging.[20]

Harris and I both said it was a good idea of George’s. The only one who was not struck with the suggestion was Montmorency.

“It’s all very well for you fellows,” he says; “you like it, but I don’t. There’s nothing for me to do. If you ask me, I call the whole thing foolishness.”

We were three to one,[21] however.

Chapter II

We pulled out the maps, and discussed plans. We arranged to start on the following Saturday from Kingston.[22] Harris and I would go down in the morning, and take the boat up to Chertsey,[23] and George would meet us there.

Should we ‘camp out’ or sleep at inns?

George and I were for camping out. We said it would be so wild and free, so patriarchal.

Harris said:

“How about when it rained?”

Camping out in rainy weather is not pleasant. We therefore decided that we would sleep out on fine nights; and in hotels and inns, like respectable folks, when it was wet. Montmorency approved this compromise. To look at Montmorency you would imagine that he was an angel sent upon the earth, for some reason in the shape of a small fox-terrier. When first he came to live with me, I never thought I should be able to have him long. I used to sit down and look at him, and think: “Oh, that dog will never live.” But I was wrong.

To hang about a stable, and collect a gang of the most disreputable dogs[24] to be found in the town, and lead them out to fight other disreputable dogs, is Montmorency’s idea of ‘life’.

Harris proposed that we should go out and get a drop of good Irish whiskey.

George said he felt thirsty (I never knew George when he didn’t); and we put on our hats and went out.

Chapter III

So, on the following evening, we again assembled, to discuss and arrange our plans. Harris said:

“Now we must discuss what to take with us. Now, you get a piece of paper and write down, J.,[25] and you get the grocery catalogue, George, and I’ll make out a list.”

I said:

“No; you get the paper, and the pencil, and the catalogue, and George write down, and I’ll do the work.”

“We must not think of the things we could do with,[26] but only of the things that we can’t do without.[27]”

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. You fix iron hoops up over the boat, and stretch a huge canvas over them, and fasten it down all round, and it converts the boat into a little house.

George said that in that case we must take a rug each, a lamp, some soap, a brush and comb (between us[28]), a tooth-brush (each), a basin, some tooth-powder, some shaving tackle, and a couple of big-towels for bathing. I notice that people always make gigantic arrangements for bathing when they are going anywhere near the water, but that they don’t bathe much when they are there.

George said it was so pleasant to wake up in the boat in the fresh morning, and plunge into the river. Harris said there was nothing like a swim before breakfast to give you an appetite. He said it always gave him an appetite. George said that if it was going to make Harris eat more than Harris ordinarily ate, then he should protest against Harris having a bath at all.

Finally we decided to take three bath towels, so as not to keep each other waiting.

For clothes, George said two suits of flannel would be sufficient, as we could wash them ourselves, in the river, when they got dirty. Harris and I were weak enough to believe he knew what he was talking about, and that three respectable young men could really clean their own shirts and trousers in the river Thames with a bit of soap.

Later we found that George was a miserable impostor.

George forced us to take plenty of socks, in case we got upset;[29] also plenty of handkerchiefs, and a pair of leather boots as well as our boating shoes.

Chapter IV

Then we discussed the food question. George said:

“Begin with breakfast.” (George is so practical.) “Now for breakfast we need a frying-pan, a teapot and a kettle, and a methylated spirit stove.[30]”

“No oil,[31]” said George, with a significant look; and Harris and I agreed.

We had taken an oil-stove[32] once, but ‘never again’. We spent that week in an oil-shop. It oozed. We kept it in the nose of the boat, and, from there, it oozed down to the rudder, and it oozed over the river, 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.

We tried to get away from it at Marlow.[33] We left the boat by the bridge, and took a walk through the town to escape it, but it followed us. The whole town was full of oil. We passed through the church-yard, and it seemed as if the people had been buried in oil. The High Street[34] stunk of oil; we wondered how people could live in it.

At the end of that trip we took an awful oath never to take paraffine oil with us in a boat again.

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. It wants the whole boat to itself. It gives a cheesy flavour to everything else. You can’t 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.

George suggested meat and fruit pies, cold meat, tomatoes, fruit, and green stuff. For drink, we took some wonderful sticky concoction of Harris’s, which you mixed with water and called lemonade, plenty of tea, and a bottle of whisky, in case, as George said, we got upset. But I’m glad we took the whisky.

We didn’t take beer or wine. They are a mistake up the river. They make you feel sleepy and heavy.

We made a list of the things to be taken, and a pretty lengthy one it was, before we parted that evening. The next day, which was Friday, we got them all together, and met in the evening to pack. I said I’d pack.

I rather pride myself on my packing.[35] Packing is one of those many things that I feel I know more about than any other person.

I started the packing. It seemed a longer job than I had thought; but I got the bag finished at last, and I sat on it.

“Aren’t you going to put the boots in?” said Harris.

And I looked round, and found I had forgotten them. 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?

My tooth-brush is a terrible thing, it makes my life a misery. While sleeping, I dream that I haven’t 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 then I repack and forget it, and I have to carry it to the railway station, wrapped up in my pocket handkerchief.

Of course, I could not find it. I took the things out of the suitcase. Of course, I found George’s and Harris’s eighteen times over, but I couldn’t find my own. Then I found it inside a boot. I repacked once more.

When I had finished, George asked if the soap was in. I said I didn’t care whether the soap was in or whether it wasn’t. But I found that I had packed my tobacco-pouch in it, and had to reopen it. Harris said that he and George had better do the rest; and I agreed and sat down.

They began. I made no comment; I only watched. They started with breaking a cup. That was the first thing they did. Then Harris packed the strawberry jam on top of a tomato and squashed it, and they had to pick out[36] the tomato with a teaspoon.

And then it was George’s turn, and he trod on the butter. I didn’t say anything, but I sat on the edge of the table and watched them. It irritated them. I felt that. It made them nervous and excited, and they stepped on things, and put things behind them, and then couldn’t find them when they wanted them. They packed the pies at the bottom, and put heavy things on top, and smashed the pies in.

They upset salt over everything. But the butter! They tried to put it in the kettle. It wouldn’t go in, and what was in wouldn’t come out. They scraped it out at last,[37] and put it down on a chair, and Harris sat on it, and it stuck to him, and they went looking for it all over the room.

“I put it down on that chair,” said George, staring at the empty seat.

“So mysterious!” said Harris.

Then George got round at the back of Harris and saw it.

“Here it is all the time,” he exclaimed, indignantly.

And they got it off,[38] and packed it in the tea-pot.

Montmorency came and sat down on things, just when they were wanted to be packed; and he was sure that Harris or George wanted to touch his cold, damp nose. He put his leg into the jam, and he fought the teaspoons, and he pretended that the lemons were rats, and killed three of them.

Harris said I encouraged him. I didn’t encourage him. A dog like that doesn’t want any encouragement.

The packing was done at 12.50; and Harris said he hoped nothing would be found broken. George said that if anything was broken it was broken. He also said he was ready for bed. We were all ready for bed. We went upstairs.

Chapter V

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.

“Nine o’clock,” she replied, through the keyhole.

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.

I saw George. He was still sleeping – the man who had wanted to know what time he should wake us – on his back, with his mouth wide open. I shouted in his ear, and he awoke.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, sitting up.

“Get up!” roared Harris. “It’s quarter to ten.”

“What!” he shrieked, jumping out of bed into the bath.

We finished dressing, and we remembered that we had packed the tooth-brushes and the brush and comb, and we had to go downstairs, and take them out of the bag.

We went downstairs to breakfast. Montmorency had invited two other dogs to come and see him off,[39] and they were sitting on the doorstep.

It was very bright and sunny on that morning. Harris and I brought our luggage to the doorstep, and began to wait for a cab.

Our luggage was rather big. There was a huge suitcase and the small hand-bag, and the two hampers, and a large roll of rugs, and some four or five overcoats and mackintoshes, and a few umbrellas, and then there was a melon in a bag, and a couple of pounds of grapes in another bag, and a Japanese paper umbrella, and a frying-pan.

Quite a small crowd had collected, and people were asking each other what was the matter. One party (the young and giddy portion of the crowd) thought that it was a wedding, and pointed out Harris as the bridegroom; while the elder and more thoughtful party said that it was a funeral, and that I was probably the corpse’s brother.

At last, an empty cab came, and packing ourselves and our things into it, we drove away amidst the cheers of the crowd.

We got to Waterloo[40] at eleven, and asked where the eleven-five started from.[41] Of course nobody knew; nobody at Waterloo ever knows where a train is going to start from, or where a train when it starts is going to, or anything about it. The porter who took our things thought it would go from number two platform, while another porter, with whom he discussed the question, had heard a rumour that it would go from number one.

We went upstairs, and asked the traffic superintendent, and he told us that he had just met a man, who said he had seen it at number three platform. We went to number three platform. We saw the engine-driver, and asked him if he was going to Kingston. He said he couldn’t say for certain of course, but that he rather thought he was. We gave him half-a-crown, and begged him to be the 11.5 for Kingston.

“Nobody will ever know,” we said, “what you are, or where you’re going. You know the way, so go to Kingston.”

“Well, I don’t know, gentlemen,” replied the noble fellow, “but I’ll do it. Give me the halfcrown.”

Thus we got to Kingston.

We learnt, afterwards, that they had spent hours at Waterloo, looking for the train we had come by, and nobody knew what had become of it.

Our boat was waiting for us at Kingston just below bridge. We stored our luggage, and into it we stepped.

Chapter VI

It was a glorious morning, late spring or early summer, when the year seems like a fair young maid. I was looking at the town and began to think about great English kings and queens who built it.

Suddenly Harris got up and left his seat, and sat on his back, and stuck his legs in the air.[42] Montmorency howled, and the top hamper jumped up, and all the things came out.

I was somewhat surprised, but I did not lose my temper. I said, pleasantly enough:

“Hello! what’s the matter?”

“What’s the matter? Why – ”

No, on second thoughts, I will not repeat what Harris said. Maybe I was guilty, I admit it; but nothing excuses violence of language of Harris. I was thinking of other things, and forgot, as any one might easily understand, that I was steering, and our boat hit the bank of the river.

I got out and took the tow-line, and ran the boat on past Hampton Court.[43] What a dear old wall that is that runs along by the river there! If I could only draw, and knew how to paint, I could make a lovely sketch of that old wall, I’m sure.

I’ve often thought I should like to live at Hampton Court. It looks so peaceful and so quiet, and it is such a dear old place to walk around in the early morning.

We are creatures of the sun, we men and women. We love light and life. That is why we crowd into the towns and cities, and the country grows more and more deserted every year.

Harris asked me if I’d ever been in the maze at Hampton Court.[44] He said he went in once to show somebody else the way. He had studied it up in a map, and it was so simple that it seemed foolish – hardly worth the twopence charged for admission. Harris took his country cousin there. He said:

“We’ll just go in here, so that you can say you’ve been, but it’s very simple. It’s absurd to call it a maze. You must always turn right – that’s all. We’ll just walk round for ten minutes, and then go and get some lunch.”

They met some people soon after they had got inside, who said they had been there for three-quarters of an hour. Harris told them they could follow him, if they liked; he was just going in, and then should turn round and come out again. They said it was very kind of him, and followed.

People who had given up all hopes of ever getting either in or out,[45] joined the procession, blessing him. Harris said there were about twenty people, following him; and one woman with a baby, who took his arm, for fear of losing him.

Harris kept on turning to the right, but it seemed a long way, and his cousin said he supposed it was a very big maze.

“Oh, one of the largest in Europe,” said Harris. “Yes, it must be,” replied the cousin, “because we’ve walked a good two miles already.”

Harris began to think it rather strange himself. At last, they passed the piece of a cake that Harris’s cousin had noticed there seven minutes ago. Harris said, “Oh, impossible!” but the woman with the baby said, “Not at all,” as she herself had taken it from the child, and thrown it down there, just before she met Harris. She also added that she wished she never had met Harris, and expressed an opinion that he was an impostor. That made Harris mad, and he showed her his map, and explained his theory.

“The map may be all right enough,” said one of the party, “if you know where we are now.”

Harris didn’t know, and suggested that the best thing to do would be to go back to the entrance, and begin again. So everybody turned, and went, in the opposite direction. About ten minutes more passed, and then they found themselves in the centre.

Anyhow, they knew where they were, and the thing seemed simpler than ever, and off they started for the third time.

And three minutes later they were back in the centre again.

After that, whatever way they turned brought them back to the middle. Harris said that he had become unpopular.

They had to wait till one of the old keepers came back from his dinner before they got out.

Harris said he thought it was a very fine maze, and we agreed that we would try to get George to go into it, on our way back.

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