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    Three Men in a Boat
    Three Men in a Boat
    Three Men in a Boat
    Ebook237 pages3 hours

    Three Men in a Boat

    By Jerome K. Jerome and Mint Editions

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    While they are discussing the possible illnesses they may have, Jerome, Harris, and George all realize they suffer from the same thing—working too much. Upon the realization, the three best friends decide that they must go on a vacation. After rejecting the ideas of a sea trip or country stay, because Jerome doesn’t like the sea, and Harris finds the country to be dull, the men decide on a boat trip. With their bags packed and with the company of Jerome’s dog, Montmorency, the friends set off on a boat traveling along the Thames River. They pass notable landmarks and muse about them, questioning their importance, appearance, and origins. Memories are recalled and shared with embellishments. The three men enjoy each other’s company until the vacation takes turns that they could never expect. With unpredictable weather, comedic pitfalls, and wild humor, no outcome is impossible on this chaotic vacation. Facing their own shortcomings, flaws, and the uncontrollable weather, Jerome, Harris, and George must work together to remain in good spirits and find the silver linings so they can still enjoy their vacation.

    Though originally intended to be a travel guide, the witty jokes, humorous diversions, and realistic characters portrayed in Three Men in a Boat stole the focus of the novel. Based off author Jerome K. Jerome’s real-life experiences, Three Men in a Boat is a comedy that has stood the test of time. With undated jokes and hilarity, Jerome’s comedic work of escapism, Three Men in a Boat, remains to seem fresh and witty over one hundred years later.

    Three Men in a Boat is brought back to life with a modern font and a new, eye-catching design. This classic comedy is an essential to any fun collection. Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat offers a short escape from reality and entertainment from even the most unexpected adventures.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMint Editions
    Release dateDec 1, 2020
    ISBN9781513272467
    Author

    Jerome K. Jerome

    Jerome K. Jerome (1859–1927) was a British writer and humorist best known for the comic travelogue Three Men in a Boat. Inspired by his honeymoon boat trip on the River Thames, the novel was initially derided by critics as “vulgar,” but it soon became a phenomenon on both sides of the Atlantic and has never been out of print. 

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    Reviews for Three Men in a Boat

    4/5

    1,948 ratings140 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Always humorous.
    • 3/5
      Inspired to read after To Say Nothing of the Dog. Breezy reading, occasionally amusing, eventually boring. Dropped after about 11 chapters.
    • 3/5
      Happy to have read this, only to enjoy the occasional long-winded lyrical passage and droll story, and because, sadly, this is a classic of British literature. Malcolm Bradbury put it quite well in DOCTOR CRIMINALE: "So when you thought about it 1889 was quite a year, right across Europe – the time of Freud and Nietzsche, Ibsen and Zola, Max Nordau and Max Weber. In fact it was the great year of Modernismus, modern thought. And in Britain that year…well, in Britain that year, the British, as the British do, were coming along just a little late. The book of the year…was Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat."
    • 3/5
      Mildly humorous. Not the laugh out loud type, but still an amusing read. Found out there is an old movie which I would like to see.
    • 3/5
      The comedic effect is by turns helped and hurt by this book's overwhelming British-ness.
    • 5/5
      If you don't get 5 or 6 really huge laughs out of this, then I doubt much can be done to help you.
    • 4/5
      As part of my plan to knock off TBR books quicker by checking out audio versions, I started this book just at the tail end of last year, but didn't make enough progress before holidays, so picked it back up this month. But there were problems: My first audio, checked out from my local library, was a popular edition with holds, so my check-out expired before I could finish it and I couldn't renew - there are currently still 2 holds on it before mine. When I went to dig out my paperback copy to finish reading it, I couldn't find it. I remember showing it to MT because he'd heard mention of the book somewhere, and now neither of us can find it. Not a happy camper. Because my library copy has numerous holds, I went to a neighbouring system I have a card with and checked out their audio edition - a different one, but it's narrated by Hugh Laurie, and he can't suck right? Right. But when it ended much sooner than I expected it to, I discovered it's abridged. SO - I'm reviewing it anyway and when I get home there will be a possibly violent rummage through the house and the paperback will be found. At which point I will figure out what I missed. It doesn't really matter though, because the book is lovely. Light, amusing, entertaining and often poetic. While Hugh Laurie was brilliant, I think I have to give an extra nudge to Frederick Davidson's edition. He adds a certain ironic gravitas to his reading that makes lightly amusing anecdotes hilarious. Highly recommended in any form.
    • 5/5
      Very few can write as delightfully as this book, with such a rousing yet harmless humor that graces all it touches. A childhood favorite; still a good tale that makes one want to get in a boat and start paddling.
    • 3/5
      This book written in the 1800's was written as a travel guide but is now presented as humor. I found the humor rather like some British TV Comedy (for example 'Faulty Towers') somewhat predictable and over the top. I grew tired of it before it was done.
    • 4/5
      In which an otherwise sensible dog takes a trip up the Thames with three hapless humans, and somehow manages to come out of it unscathed. As do the humans, one of whom tells the tale. It's Wodehouse witty, and owes much to Twain as well. Hang on to your sculls, because you'll laugh 'til you squeak for breath one minute, and be moved to find a good biography of Queen Matilda or Edward the Confessor in the next.Reviewed in 2012
    • 4/5
      I had read this back in 2011, and didn't understand why it was considered a comic classic, but one of my reading groups chose it and I thought it might be funnier if I listened to it.This is a perfect example of arch, late 19th century British silliness. Listening to it was eventually better than reading it. The first third or so was deadly, and I actually fell asleep. But I persevered, and also sped up the audio just a little bit (1.2), and the rest of the book gained in humor. Some of the small, serious interludes are thought-provoking as well.The three men in question (and the dog) decide to take a boat trip the way young men might decide to take a motorcycle getaway these days. There's a lot about the Thames itself, and if I were familiar with the river that part would have been much more interesting. Some of the small, serious interludes are thought-provoking as well.
    • 3/5
      First published in 1889, this book has travelled well - the humour still works.It paints a picture of a different social era, one of a slower pace than society today, but where the instincts of individuals are not that different from today. But there are also dark spots - the body in the river of the woman who committed suicide after an illegitimate birth provides a jarring note.The scenic highlights have not changed much - it is easy to follow the course of the trip in Google and Google maps - the landmarks are still there - as are a surprising number of the old inns.A good read.
    • 3/5
      I started to read this for about the 3rd time and I still couldn't get through the book. My English teacher (whom I loved) said it was laugh out loud funny but I quickly got bored of the book. Maybe I will try again another time.
    • 2/5
      19th century British comedy about the inadequacies of three men who embark on a boating expedition. Covers their inability to pack, lack of boating skills, woeful cooking skills, and the like. I don't believe the novel stands the test of time. You really have to take yourself back in time to appreciate some of the humour.
    • 2/5
      It was not what I was expecting. My expectations were much hire from what the various comments where saying about it. This is not a great our even a good book… mediocre? maybe.
      Sure, there's some few pages where imagination and cleverness is evident, but is not enough to be a "great 5 stars" book.
      Some laughs = yes
      Like ti? = no, feel like a waist of time
    • 4/5
      I read Connie Willis's To Say Nothing of the Dog last year. That book uses this classic as a backdrop but I had not read it so I determined to remedy that as soon as possible. When I saw a copy in my local USB for only $2.00 I knew I had to get it.Supposedly this book is based upon a real journey the author, two friends and a dog took in a boat up the Thames in 1888. I don't want to libel a man who is long dead but I do suspect that some of the incidents were imagined or at least hyperbolic. Nevertheless the story is a good view of life in Victorian England when people were not in such a hurry and the idea of spending two weeks going from London to Oxford and back was one way to spend a vacation. Jerome has that dry wit that one only seems to find in the English and it often caught me by surprise. On the other hand he can describe scenes of nature handily and he sometimes even dips into social commentary. He also delves into the history of places encountered along the way which is quite illuminating. Here is a little example from Chapter 16:In later years, Reading seems to have been regarded as a handy place to run down to, when matters were becoming unpleasant in London. Parliament generally rushed off to Reading whenever there was a plague on at Westminster; and, in 1625, the Law followed suit, and all the courts were held at Reading. It must have been worth while having a mere ordinary plague now and then in London to get rid of both the lawyers and the Parliament.
    • 4/5
      Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) recounts a two-week boating holiday on the Thames from Kingston to Oxford and back again. The story focuses on George, Harris, Jerome, and Jerome’s dog, Montmorency, as they plan the trip and recount past stories in the course of their adventures. Jerome humorously muses on the nature of cheese, the habit of visiting tombs in picturesque villages, historical Thames islands like Magna Charta Island, their visitors such as Kings John and Henry VIII, the nature of Victorian-era flirting, the relationships of dogs, the methods of rowing, fish stories, and more. Though some of the situations Jerome describes are uniquely nineteenth-century, the wit of his writing will entertain readers over a hundred years later. This Folio Society edition reprints the original 1889 text with illustrations from Paul Cox that capture the humor of Jerome’s text.
    • 4/5
      The classic tale of three young men who decide to take a respite from their lives and spend two weeks rowing up the river Thames.I knew this was a comic novel but I wasn't quite prepared for just how often this book would have me laughing out loud. The many asides our narrator gives on his previous boating experiences, the locales that surround him, and the adventures that he and his two friends as well as his dog get up to had me giggling loudly both at home and in public. Probably best read if you've had some other experience with Victorian literature but highly recommended if you haven't picked this one up already.
    • 4/5
      There are loads of reviews on this work, so this is only to say, I loved this book. It is one I will be seeking in hardcover so that I may read it again. I had the ebook version, and although the story was still wonderful, the illustrations were tiny. I need to hold this book, flip the pages back and forth, reread passages, underline some of them and make notes in the margins. I want to have a relationship with it and I can't do that with an ebook. There are not many books I feel that way about.This one had me laughing out-loud frequently. Not hysterical laughing, but amused laughing. Much of it felt modern, but certain passages made the reader aware of the times the book was written in. I took my time reading this, because I wanted to appreciate it. It is farce, comedy, poetic, philosophical, and retrospective. Good, clean fun. The only thing which could make it better for me, is if I had been on a boating trip on the Thames, but the author describes it in such a way, that I feel I have been.
    • 3/5
      Light, amusing and occasionally brilliantly written (I'm a sucker for alliteration). Full of digressions, each of which is just about precisely the right length. > 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 today. … But who wants to be foretold the weather? It is bad enough when it comes, without our having the misery of knowing about it beforehand.> We had just commenced the third course—the bread and jam—when a gentleman in shirtsleeves and a short pipe came along, and wanted to know if we knew that we were trespassing. We said we hadn’t given the matter sufficient consideration as yet to enable us to arrive at a definite conclusion on that point, but that, if he assured us on his word as a gentleman that we were trespassing, we would, without further hesitation, believe it. He gave us the required assurance, and we thanked him, but he still hung about, and seemed to be dissatisfied, so we asked him if there was anything further that we could do for him; and Harris, who is of a chummy disposition, offered him a bit of bread and jam.…> It always does seem to me that I am doing more work than I should do. It is not that I object to the work, mind you; I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours. I love to keep it by me: the idea of getting rid of it nearly breaks my heart. You cannot give me too much work; to accumulate work has almost become a passion with me: my study is so full of it now, that there is hardly an inch of room for any more. I shall have to throw out a wing soon. And I am careful of my work, too. Why, some of the work that I have by me now has been in my possession for years and years, and there isn’t a fingermark on it.> The river—with the sunlight flashing from its dancing wavelets, gilding gold the grey-green beech-trunks, glinting through the dark, cool wood paths, chasing shadows o’er the shallows, flinging diamonds from the mill-wheels, throwing kisses to the lilies, wantoning with the weirs’ white waters, silvering moss-grown walls and bridges, brightening every tiny townlet, making sweet each lane and meadow, lying tangled in the rushes, peeping, laughing, from each inlet, gleaming gay on many a far sail, making soft the air with glory—is a golden fairy stream.> But the river—chill and weary, with the ceaseless raindrops falling on its brown and sluggish waters, with a sound as of a woman, weeping low in some dark chamber; while the woods, all dark and silent, shrouded in their mists of vapour, stand like ghosts upon the margin; silent ghosts with eyes reproachful, like the ghosts of evil actions, like the ghosts of friends neglected—is a spirit-haunted water through the land of vain regrets.
    • 4/5
      This is a gentle, fitfully humorous book about three men and a dog taking a boat trip up the Thames from London (and back). It is full of humorous digressions, a couple of which will make you chuckle a bit. Mostly, however, these episodes just serve to show that human nature hasn't changed since 1889 when this was written. There are also poetic passages extolling the landscape as well as factual passages about particular places. I found myself turning to the Internet again and again to look things up--and it doesn't appear much has changed. You could, in fact, still use this as a travel guide for such a journey. And despite the mishaps portrayed, you'll want to go.
    • 5/5
      Timeless humor. Very easy to read.
    • 1/5
      I didn't enjoy this, except in very small bursts. Most of the jokes didn't appeal to me, but I can easily see how others might find it funny. I'm very glad to be done reading it.
    • 4/5
      Three Men in a Boat is exactly what it says on the cover -- a travelogue of three young men, plus the terror dog Montmorency, going boating on the Thames for a fortnight. Interspersed with stories from other boating holidays, stories closely or tenuously linked to the river or the towns passed through, and the odd Reflection on Life, this is a slow moving, poetical, and frequently comical ramble. Unlike many 'classics of English literature', which this book is advertised as on the back cover, this is not a horrid story about horrid people. I don't think that George, Harris, or the narrator would be people I would want to spend much time with, but they do appear to have a friendship that holds together despite the frustrations of their time together.
    • 3/5
      Mildly enjoyable - I don't find this type of humor funny, but I do find it amusing. I liked the excursions into the history of places along the river - a relief from the rather strained funny bits. Most of the "contemporary" stories - stories the three men tell, about their own actions and events that befell themselves and their friends and relations - are boring or unpleasant (the trick about the German song is really nasty). But overall, it's not bad to read; not a favorite, and not a particularly humorous book, but interesting. I thought I'd read it before, but apparently not; there are several scenes I think I would have remembered.
    • 3/5
      A Victorian era collection of anecdotes about three impractical friends who decide a two-week boating holiday up the River Thames would be perfectly sublime. Little do these hypochondriacs suffering from 'overwork' take note of the practicalities involved. Along with fox-terrier Montmorency they wrestle with ropes, inclement weather, lack of a tin opener and other mishaps in this classic comedy. Fabulous to know that they were just as mad in 1889 as we are today!
    • 4/5
      A funny, touching and enjoyable trip on the River Thames. Enjoyable with company that comes along and side trips the characters take you through.
    • 4/5
      Hilarious. Overripe comedy in the style of Mark Twain. I subtract one star only for the excruciatingly long passages which mimic and mock lyrical writing of the 19th century; it's expertly done, and I'm sure it killed at the time, but today it's a bit much.
    • 4/5
      4.5 stars? It would be 5, but the occasional serious sections tossed in here and there - and the abrupt change of direction at the end - knocked it down a bit for me. One of the funniest books I've read in a long time, though. Highly recommended!
    • 5/5
      What a complete little gem this is! A quick read, only 100 pages, but I laughed from beginning to end. I was needing something funny to read, and this quickie really worked. Recommended!

    Book preview

    Three Men in a Boat - Jerome K. Jerome

    Chapter 1

    THREE INVALIDS.—SUFFERINGS OF GEORGE AND HARRIS.—A VICTIM TO ONE HUNDRED AND SEVEN FATAL MALADIES.—USEFUL PRESCRIPTIONS.—CURE FOR LIVER COMPLAINT IN CHILDREN.—WE AGREE THAT WE ARE OVERWORKED, AND NEED REST.—A WEEK ON THE ROLLING DEEP?—GEORGE SUGGESTS THE RIVER.—MONTMORENCY LODGES AN OBJECTION.—ORIGINAL MOTION CARRIED BY MAJORITY OF THREE TO ONE.

    There were four of us—George, and William Samuel Harris, and myself, and Montmorency. We were sitting in my room, smoking, and talking about how bad we were—bad from a medical point of view I mean, of course.

    We were all feeling seedy, and we were getting quite nervous about it. Harris said he felt such extraordinary fits of giddiness come over him at times, that he hardly knew what he was doing; and then George said that he had fits of giddiness too, and hardly knew what he was doing. With me, it was my liver that was out of order. I knew it was my liver that was out of order, because I had just been reading a patent liver-pill circular, in which were detailed the various symptoms by which a man could tell when his liver was out of order. I had them all.

    It is a most extraordinary thing, but I never read a patent medicine advertisement without being impelled to the conclusion that I am suffering from the particular disease therein dealt with in its most virulent form. The diagnosis seems in every case to correspond exactly with all the sensations that I have ever felt.

    I remember going to the British Museum one day to read up the treatment for some slight ailment of which I had a touch—hay fever, I fancy it was. I got down the book, and read all I came to read; and then, in an unthinking moment, I idly turned the leaves, and began to indolently study diseases, generally. I forget which was the first distemper I plunged into—some fearful, devastating scourge, I know—and, before I had glanced half down the list of premonitory symptoms, it was borne in upon me that I had fairly got it.

    I sat for awhile, frozen with horror; and then, in the listlessness of despair, I again turned over the pages. I came to typhoid fever—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—found, as I expected, that I had that too,—began to get interested in my case, and determined to sift it to the bottom, and so started alphabetically—read up ague, and learnt that I was sickening for it, and that the acute stage would commence in about another fortnight. Bright’s disease, I was relieved to find, I had only in a modified form, and, so far as that was concerned, I might live for years. Cholera I had, with severe complications; and diphtheria I seemed to have been born with. I plodded conscientiously through the twenty-six letters, and the only malady I could conclude I had not got was housemaid’s knee.

    I felt rather hurt about this at first; it seemed somehow to be a sort of slight. Why hadn’t I got housemaid’s knee? Why this invidious reservation? After a while, however, less grasping feelings prevailed. 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. Gout, in its most malignant stage, it would appear, had seized me without my being aware of it; and zymosis I had evidently been suffering with from boyhood. There were no more diseases after zymosis, so I concluded there was nothing else the matter with me.

    I sat and pondered. I thought what an interesting case I must be from a medical point of view, what an acquisition I should be to a class! 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. I pulled out my watch and timed it. 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 have since been induced to come to the opinion that it must have been there all the time, and must have been beating, but I cannot account for it. I patted myself all over my front, from what I call my waist up to my head, and I went a bit round each side, and a little way up the back. But I could not feel or hear anything. I tried to look at my tongue. I stuck it out as far as ever it would go, and I shut one eye, and tried to examine it with the other. I could only see the tip, and the only thing that I could gain from that was to feel more certain than before that I had scarlet fever.

    I had walked into that reading-room a happy, healthy man. I crawled out a decrepit wreck.

    I went to my medical man. He is an old chum of mine, and feels my pulse, and looks at my tongue, and talks about the weather, all for nothing, when I fancy I’m ill; so I thought I would do him a good turn by going to him now. What a doctor wants, I said, is practice. He shall have me. He will get more practice out of me than out of seventeen hundred of your ordinary, commonplace patients, with only one or two diseases each. So I went straight up and saw him, and he said:

    Well, what’s the matter with you?

    I said:

    "I will not take up your time, dear boy, with telling you what is the matter with me. Life is brief, and you might pass away before I had finished. 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."

    And I told him how I came to discover it all.

    Then he opened me and looked down me, and clutched hold of my wrist, and then he hit me over the chest when I wasn’t expecting it—a cowardly thing to do, I call it—and immediately afterwards butted me with the side of his head. 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, and handed it in. The man read it, and then handed it back.

    He said he didn’t keep it.

    I said:

    You are a chemist?

    He said:

    I am a chemist. If I was a co-operative stores and family hotel combined, I might be able to oblige you. Being only a chemist hampers me.

    I read the prescription. It ran:

    "1 lb. beefsteak, with

    1 pt. bitter beer

    every 6 hours.

    1 ten-mile walk every morning.

    1 bed at 11 sharp every night.

    And don’t stuff up your head with things you don’t understand."

    I followed the directions, with the happy result—speaking for myself—that my life was preserved, and is still going on.

    In the present instance, 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.

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

    Why, you skulking little devil, you, they would say, get up and do something for your living, can’t you?—not knowing, of course, that I was ill.

    And they didn’t give me pills; they gave me clumps on the side of the head. And, strange as it may appear, those clumps on the head often cured me—for the time being. I have known one clump on the head have more effect upon my liver, and make me feel more anxious to go straight away then and there, and do what was wanted to be done, without further loss of time, than a whole box of pills does now.

    You know, it often is so—those simple, old-fashioned remedies are sometimes more efficacious than all the dispensary stuff.

    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 stood on the hearth-rug, and gave us a clever and powerful piece of acting, illustrative of how he felt in the night.

    George fancies he is ill; but there’s never anything really the matter with him, you know.

    At this point, Mrs. Poppets knocked at the door to know if we were ready for supper. We smiled sadly at one another, and said we supposed we had better try to swallow a bit. Harris said a little something in one’s stomach often kept the disease in check; and Mrs. Poppets brought the tray in, and we drew up to the table, and toyed with a little steak and onions, and some rhubarb tart.

    I must have been very weak at the time; because I know, after the first half-hour or so, I seemed to take no interest whatever in my food—an unusual thing for me—and I didn’t want any cheese.

    This duty done, we refilled our glasses, lit our pipes, and resumed the discussion upon our state of health. What it was that was actually the matter with us, we none of us could be sure of; but the unanimous opinion was that it—whatever it was—had been brought on by overwork.

    What we want is rest, said Harris.

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

    George has a cousin, who is usually described in the charge-sheet as a medical student, so that he naturally has a somewhat family-physicianary way of putting things.

    I agreed with George, and suggested that we should seek out some retired and old-world spot, far from the madding crowd, and dream away a sunny week among its drowsy lanes—some half-forgotten nook, hidden away by the fairies, out of reach of the noisy world—some quaint-perched eyrie on the cliffs of Time, from whence the surging waves of the nineteenth century would sound far-off and faint.

    Harris said he thought it would be humpy. He said he knew the sort of place I meant; where everybody went to bed at eight o’clock, and you couldn’t get a Referee for love or money, and had to walk ten miles to get your baccy.

    No, said Harris, if you want rest and change, you can’t beat a sea trip.

    I objected to the sea trip strongly. A sea trip does you good when you are going to have a couple of months of it, but, for a week, it is wicked.

    You start on Monday with the idea implanted in your bosom that you are going to enjoy yourself. You wave an airy adieu to the boys on shore, light your biggest pipe, and swagger about the deck as if you were Captain Cook, Sir Francis Drake, and Christopher Columbus all rolled into one. On Tuesday, you wish you hadn’t come. On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, you wish you were dead. On Saturday, you are able to swallow a little beef tea, and to sit up on deck, and answer with a wan, sweet smile when kind-hearted people ask you how you feel now. On Sunday, you begin to walk about again, and take solid food. And on Monday morning, as, with your bag and umbrella in your hand, you stand by the gunwale, waiting to step ashore, you begin to thoroughly like it.

    I remember my brother-in-law going for a short sea trip once, for the benefit of his health. He took a return berth from London to Liverpool; and when he got to Liverpool, the only thing he was anxious about was to sell that return ticket.

    It was offered round the town at a tremendous reduction, so I am told; and was eventually sold for eighteenpence to a bilious-looking youth who had just been advised by his medical men to go to the sea-side, and take exercise.

    Sea-side! said my brother-in-law, pressing the ticket affectionately into his hand; why, you’ll have enough to last you a lifetime; and as for exercise! why, you’ll get more exercise, sitting down on that ship, than you would turning somersaults on dry land.

    He himself—my brother-in-law—came back by train. He said the North-Western Railway was healthy enough for him.

    Another fellow I knew went for a week’s voyage round the coast, and, before they started, the steward came to him to ask whether he would pay for each meal as he had it, or arrange beforehand for the whole series.

    The steward recommended the latter course, as it would come so much cheaper. He said they would do him for the whole week at two pounds five. He said for breakfast there would be fish, followed by a grill. Lunch was at one, and consisted of four courses. Dinner at six—soup, fish, entree, joint, poultry, salad, sweets, cheese, and dessert. And a light meat supper at ten.

    My friend thought he would close on the two-pound-five job (he is a hearty eater), and did so.

    Lunch came just as they were off Sheerness. He didn’t feel so hungry as he thought he should, and so contented himself with a bit of boiled beef, and some strawberries and cream. He pondered a good deal during the afternoon, and at one time it seemed to him that he had been eating nothing but boiled beef for weeks, and at other times it seemed that he must have been living on strawberries and cream for years.

    Neither the beef nor the strawberries and cream seemed happy, either—seemed discontented like.

    At six, they came and told him dinner was ready. The announcement aroused no enthusiasm within him, but he felt that there was some of that two-pound-five to be worked off, and he held on to ropes and things and went down. A pleasant odour of onions and hot ham, mingled with fried fish and greens, greeted him at the bottom of the ladder; and then the steward came up with an oily smile, and said:

    What can I get you, sir?

    Get me out of this, was the feeble reply.

    And they ran him up quick, and propped him up, over to leeward, and left him.

    For the next four days he lived a simple and blameless life on thin captain’s biscuits (I mean that the biscuits were thin, not the captain) and soda-water; but, towards Saturday, he got uppish, and went in for weak tea and dry toast, and on Monday he was gorging himself on chicken broth. He left the ship on Tuesday, and as it steamed away from the landing-stage he gazed after it regretfully.

    There she goes, he said, there she goes, with two pounds’ worth of food on board that belongs to me, and that I haven’t had.

    He said that if they had given him another day he thought he could have put it straight.

    So I set my face against the sea trip. Not, as I explained, upon my own account. I was never queer. But I was afraid for George. George said he should be all right, and would rather like it, but he would advise Harris and me not to think of it, as he felt sure we should both be ill. Harris said that, to himself, it was always a mystery how people managed to get sick at sea—said he thought people must do it on purpose, from affectation—said he had often wished to be, but had never been able.

    Then he told us anecdotes of how he had gone across the Channel when it was so rough that the passengers had to be tied into their berths, and he and the captain were the only two living souls on board who were not ill. Sometimes it was he and the second mate who were not ill; but it was generally he and one other man. If not he and another man, then it was he by himself.

    It is a curious fact, but nobody ever is sea-sick—on land. At sea, you come across plenty of people very bad indeed, whole boat-loads of them; but I never met a man yet, on land, who had ever known at all what it was to be sea-sick. Where the thousands upon thousands of bad sailors that swarm in every ship hide themselves when they are on land is a mystery.

    If most men were like a fellow I saw on the Yarmouth boat one day, I could account for the seeming enigma easily enough. It was just off Southend Pier, I recollect, and he was leaning out through one of the port-holes in a very dangerous position. I went up to him to try and save him.

    Hi! come further in, I said, shaking him by the shoulder. You’ll be overboard.

    Oh my! I wish I was, was the only answer I could get; and there I had to leave him.

    Three weeks afterwards, I met him in the coffee-room of a Bath hotel, talking about his voyages, and explaining, with enthusiasm, how he loved the sea.

    Good sailor! he replied in answer to a mild young man’s envious query; "well, I did feel a little queer once, I confess. It was off Cape Horn. The vessel was wrecked the next morning."

    I said:

    Weren’t you a little shaky by Southend Pier one day, and wanted to be thrown overboard?

    Southend Pier! he replied, with a puzzled expression.

    Yes; going down to Yarmouth, last Friday three weeks.

    Oh, ah—yes, he answered, brightening up; "I remember now. I did have a headache that afternoon. It was the pickles, you know. They were the most disgraceful pickles I ever tasted in a respectable boat. Did you have any?"

    For myself, I have discovered an excellent preventive against sea-sickness, in balancing myself. You stand in the centre of the deck, and, as the ship heaves and pitches, 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; the constant change of scene would occupy our minds (including what there was of Harris’s); 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 have a tendency to make him sleepier than he always was, as it might be dangerous. He

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