1 draws from the human heartstrings around us

me to

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beg your pardon, really. I quite forgot. Vell, we left the list to George, and he began it We won't take a tent," suggested George; We I have a boat with a cover. It is ever so much pler, and more comfortable."

t seemed a good thought, and we adopted it. 1 not know whether you have ever seen the thing nean. You fix iron hoops up over the boat, and etch a huge canvas over them, and fasten it down round, from stem to stern, and it converts the t into a sort of little house, and it is beautifully y, though a trifle stuffy; but there, everything its drawbacks, as the man said when his motheraw died, and they came down upon him for the eral expenses.

George said that in that case we must take a rug h, a lamp, some soap, a brush and comb (between , a toothbrush (each), a basin, some toothvder, some shaving tackle (sounds like a French rcise, doesn't it?), and a couple of big towels bathing. I notice that people always make antic arrangements for bathing when they are ng anywhere near the water, but that they don't he much when they are there. It is the same en you go to the seaside. I always determineen thinking over the matter in London-that I'll up early every morning, and go and have a dip ore breakfast, and I religiously pack up a pair drawers and a bath towel. always get red bathdrawers. I rather fancy myself in red drawers ey suit my complexion so. But when I get to sea I don't feel somehow that I want that early

το πιο

л the contrary, I leer more that I wa bed till the last moment, and then come down and e my breakfast. Once or twice virtue has tri phed, and I have got out at six and half-dressed self, and have taken my drawers and towel, and mbled dismally off. But I haven't enjoyed it ey seem to keep a specially cutting east wind ting for me when I go to bathe in the early rning; and they pick out all the three-cornered nes, and put them on the top, and they sharpen the rocks and cover the points over with a bit of d so that I can't see them, and they take the sea A put it two miles out, so that I have to huddle self up in my arms and hop, shivering, through inches of water. And when I do get to the sea, s rough and quite insulting.

One huge wave catches me up and chucks me in a ing posture, as hard as ever it can, down onto a k which has been put there for me. And, before e said "Oh! Ugh!" and found out what has ne, the wave comes back and carries me out to l-ocean. I begin to strike out frantically for the re, and wonder if I shall ever see home and ends again, and wish I'd been kinder to my little er when a boy (when I was a boy, I mean). Just en I have given up all hope, a wave retires and ves me sprawling like a starfish on the sand, and get up and look back and find that I've been mming for my life in two feet of water. I hop k and dress, and crawl home, where I have to tend I liked it.

n the present instance, we all talked as if we re going to have a long swim every morning. orge said it was so pleasant to wake up in the it in the fresh morning, and plunge into the pid river. Harris said there was nothing like

that if it was going to make Harris eat more Harris ordinarily ate, then he should protest inst Harris having a bath at all.

He said there would be quite enough hard work towing sufficient food for Harris up against am, as it was.

urged upon George, however, how much pleaser it would be to have Harris clean and fresh ut the boat, even if we did have to take a few e hundred-weight of provisions; and he got to it in my light, and withdrew his opposition to -ris's bath.

greed, finally, that we should take three bath els, so as not to keep each other waiting.

or clothes, George said two suits of flannel ld be sufficient, as we could wash them ourselves The river, when they got dirty. We asked him if had ever tried washing flannels in the river, and replied: "No, not exactly himself like; but he W some fellows who had, and it was easy ugh;" and Harris and I were weak enough to cy he knew what he was talking about, and that e respectable young men, without position or ience, and with no experience in washing, would ly clean their own shirts and trousers in the r Thames with a bit of soap.

We were to learn in the days to come, when it too late, that George was a miserable impostor, could evidently have known nothing whatever ut the matter. If you had seen these clothes er-but, as the shilling shockers say, we antici

e.

eorge impressed upon us to take a change of er-things and plenty of socks, in case we got et and wanted a change; also plenty of handchiefs, as they would do to wipe things, and a

THE

EMBARKATION

(From "Three Men in a Boat ")

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 key-hole. thought you was a-oversleeping yourselves." 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

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How could I wake you, when you didn't wake "he retorted. "Now we sha'n't get on the er till after twelve. I wonder you take the trouto get up at all.”

Um," I replied, "lucky for you that I do. If I n't woke you, you'd have lain there for the le fortnight."

We snarled at one another in this strain for the t few minutes, when we were interrupted by a ant snore from George. It reminded us, for the t time since our being called, of his existence. re he lay-the man who wanted to know what e he should wake us-on his back, with his mouth e open, and his knees stuck up.

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

here was George, throwing away in hideous sloth

e been up stuffing himself with eggs and bacon, tating the dog, or fiirting with the slavey, inad of sprawling there, sunk in soul-clogging

vion.

t was a terrible thought. Harris and I appeared be struck by it at the same instant. We detered to save him, and, in this noble resolve, our

dispute was forgotten. We flew across and ng the clothes off him, and Harris landed him with a slipper, and I shouted in his ear, and awoke.

Wasermarrer ?" he observed, sitting up.

Get up, you fat-headed chunk!" roared Harris. 's quarter to ten."

What!" he shrieked, jumping out of bed into bath; "who the thunder put this thing here?" We told him he must have been a fool not to see bath.

We finished dressing, and, when it came to the ras, we remembered that we had packed the thbrushes and the brush and comb (that toothsh of mine will be the death of me, I know), and had to go downstairs, and fish them out of the ;. And when we had done that, George wanted shaving tackle. We told him that he would e to go without shaving that morning, as we ren't going to unpack that bag again for him, for any one like him.

He said:

'Don't be absurd! How can I go into the city > this?"

It was certainly rather rough on the city, but at cared we for human suffering? As Harris d, in his common, vulgar way, the city would ve to lump it.