‘Steam launch coming!’ one of us would cry out, on sighting the enemy in the distance; and in an instant, everything was got ready to receive her. I would take the lines, and Harris and George would sit down beside me, all of us with our backs to the launch, and the boat would drift out quietly into mid stream.

On would come the launch, whistling, and on we would go, drifting. At about a hundred yards off, she would start whistling like mad, and the people would come and lean over the side, and roar at us; but we never heard them! Harris would be telling us an anecdote about his mother, and George and I would not have missed a word of it for worlds.

Then that launch would give one final shriek of a whistle that would nearly burst the boiler, and she would reverse her engines, and blow off steam, and swing round and get aground; everyone on board of her would rush to the bow and yell at us, and the people on the bank would stand and shout to us, and all the other passing boats would stop and join in, till the whole river for miles up and down was in a state of frantic commotion. And then Harris would break off in the most interesting part of his narrative and look up with mild surprise, and say to George:

‘Why, George, bless us, if here isn’t a steam launch!’

And George would answer: ‘Well, do you know, I thought I heard something!’

Upon which we would get nervous and confused, and not know how to get the boat out of the way, and the people in the launch would crowd round and instruct us:

‘Pull your right—you, you idiot! back with your left. No, not you—the other one—leave the lines alone, can’t you—now, both together. Not that way. Oh, you——!’

Then they would lower a boat and come to our assistance; and, after a quarter of an hour’s effort, would get us clean out of their way, so that they could go on; and we would thank them so much, and ask them to give us a tow. But they never would.

Another good way we discovered of irritating the aristocratic type of steam launch, was to mistake them for a beanfeast, and ask them if they were Messrs Cubit’s lot or the Bermondsey Good Templars, and could they lend us a saucepan.

Old ladies, not accustomed to the river, are always intensely nervous of steam launches. I remember going up once from Staines to Windsor—a stretch of water peculiarly rich in these mechanical monstrosities—with a party containing three ladies of this description. It was very exciting. At the first glimpse of every steam launch that came in view, they insisted on landing and sitting down on the bank until it was out of sight again. They said they were very sorry, but that they owed it to their families not to be foolhardy.

We found ourselves short of water at Hambledon lock; so we took our jar and went up to the lock-keeper’s house to beg for some.

George was our spokesman. He put on a winning smile, and said:

‘Oh, please could you spare us a little water?’

‘Certainly,’ replied the old gentleman; ‘take as much as you want, and leave the rest.’

‘Thank you, so much,’ murmured George, looking about him. ‘Where—where do you keep it?’

‘It’s always in the same place my boy,’ was the stolid reply: ‘just behind you.’

‘I don’t see it,’ said George, turning round.