suggested that he and George should work, and let me rest a bit. It

seemed to me that I was doing more than my fair share of the work on this
trip, and I was beginning to feel strongly on the subject.

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
finger-mark on it. I take a great pride in my work; I take it down now

and then and dust it. No man keeps his work in a better state of
preservation than I do.

But, though I crave for work, I still like to be fair. I do not ask for
more than my proper share.

But I get it without asking for it - at least, so it appears to me - and
this worries me.

George says he does not think I need trouble myself on the subject. He
thinks it is only my over-scrupulous nature that makes me fear I am

having more than my due; and that, as a matter of fact, I don't have half
as much as I ought. But I expect he only says this to comfort me.

In a boat, I have always noticed that it is the fixed idea of each member
of the crew that he is doing everything. Harris's notion was, that it

was he alone who had been working, and that both George and I had been
imposing upon him. George, on the other hand, ridiculed the idea of

Harris's having done anything more than eat and sleep, and had a cast-
iron opinion that it was he - George himself - who had done all the

labour worth speaking of.
He said he had never been out with such a couple of lazily skulks as

Harris and I.
That amused Harris.

"Fancy old George talking about work!" he laughed; "why, about half-an-
hour of it would kill him. Have you ever seen George work?" he added,

turning to me.
I agreed with Harris that I never had - most certainly not since we had

started on this trip.
"Well, I don't see how YOU can know much about it, one way or the other,"

George retorted on Harris; "for I'm blest if you haven't been asleep half
the time. Have you ever seen Harris fully awake, except at meal-time?"

asked George, addressing me.
Truth compelled me to support George. Harris had been very little good

in the boat, so far as helping was concerned, from the beginning.
"Well, hang it all, I've done more than old J., anyhow," rejoined Harris.

"Well, you couldn't very well have done less," added George.
"I suppose J. thinks he is the passenger," continued Harris.

And that was their gratitude to me for having brought them and their
wretched old boat all the way up from Kingston, and for having

superintended and managed everything for them, and taken care of them,
and slaved for them. It is the way of the world.

We settled the present difficulty by arranging that Harris and George
should scull up past Reading, and that I should tow the boat on from

there. Pulling a heavy boat against a strong stream has few attractions
for me now. There was a time, long ago, when I used to clamour for the

hard work: now I like to give the youngsters a chance.
I notice that most of the old river hands are similarly retiring,

whenever there is any stiff pulling to be done. You can always tell the
old river hand by the way in which he stretches himself out upon the

cushions at the bottom of the boat, and encourages the rowers by telling
them anecdotes about the marvellous feats he performed last season.

"Call what you're doing hard work!" he drawls, between his contented
whiffs, addressing the two perspiring novices, who have been grinding

away steadily up stream for the last hour and a half; "why, Jim Biffles
and Jack and I, last season, pulled up from Marlow to Goring in one

afternoon - never stopped once. Do you remember that, Jack?"
Jack, who has made himself a bed up in the prow of all the rugs and coats

he can collect, and who has been lying there asleep for the last two
hours, partially wakes up on being thus appealed to, and recollects all

about the matter, and also remembers that there was an unusually strong
stream against them all the way - likewise a stiff wind.

"About thirty-four miles, I suppose, it must have been," adds the first
speaker, reaching down another cushion to put under his head.

" No - no; don't exaggerate, Tom," murmurs Jack, reprovingly; "thirty-
three at the outside."

And Jack and Tom, quite exhausted by this conversational effort, drop off
to sleep once more. And the two simple-minded youngsters at the sculls

feel quite proud of being allowed to row such wonderful oarsmen as Jack
and Tom, and strain away harder than ever.

When I was a young man, I used to listen to these tales from my elders,
and take them in, and swallow them, and digest every word of them, and

then come up for more; but the new generation do not seem to have the
simple faith of the old times. We - George, Harris, and myself - took a

"raw'un" up with us once last season, and we plied him with the customary
stretchers about the wonderful things we had done all the way up.

We gave him all the regular ones - the time-honoured lies that have done
duty up the river with every boating-man for years past - and added seven

entirely original ones that we had invented for ourselves, including a
really quite likely story, founded, to a certain extent, on an all but

true episode, which had actually happened in a modified degree some years
ago to friends of ours - a story that a mere child could have believed

without injuring itself, much.
And that young man mocked at them all, and wanted us to repeat the feats

then and there, and to bet us ten to one that we didn't.
We got to chatting about our rowing experiences this morning, and to

recounting stories of our first efforts in the art of oarsmanship. My
own earliest boating recollection is of five of us contributing

threepence each and taking out a curiously constructed craft on the
Regent's Park lake, drying ourselves subsequently, in the park-keeper's

lodge.
After that, having acquired a taste for the water, I did a good deal of

rafting in various suburban brickfields - an exercise providing more
interest and excitement than might be imagined, especially when you are

in the middle of the pond and the proprietor of the materials of which
the raft is constructed suddenly appears on the bank, with a big stick in

his hand.
Your first sensation on seeing this gentleman is that, somehow or other,

you don't feel equal to company and conversation, and that, if you could
do so without appearing rude, you would rather avoid meeting him; and

your object is, therefore, to get off on the opposite side of the pond to
which he is, and to go home quietly and quickly, pretending not to see

him. He, on the contrary is yearning to take you by the hand, and talk
to you.

It appears that he knows your father, and is intimately acquainted with
yourself, but this does not draw you towards him. He says he'll teach

you to take his boards and make a raft of them; but, seeing that you know
how to do this pretty well already, the offer, though doubtless kindly

meant, seems a superfluous one on his part, and you are reluctant to put
him to any trouble by accepting it.

His anxiety to meet you, however, is proof against all your coolness, and
the energetic manner in which he dodges up and down the pond so as to be

on the spot to greet you when you land is really quite flattering.
If he be of a stout and short-winded build, you can easily avoid his

advances; but, when he is of the youthful and long-legged type, a meeting
is inevitable. The interview is, however, extremely brief, most of the

conversation being on his part, your remarks being mostly of an