enry was the only one of us he really liked.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XV.

HOUSE-BOAT "ARCADIA."

Scrymgeour had a house-boat called, of course, the _Arcadia_, to
which he was so ill-advised as to invite us all at once. He was at that
time lying near Cookham, attempting to catch the advent of summer on a
canvas, and we were all, unhappily, able to accept his invitation.
Looking back to this nightmare of a holiday, I am puzzled at our not
getting on well together, for who should be happy in a house-boat if not
five bachelors, well known to each other, and all smokers of the same
tobacco? Marriot says now that perhaps we were happy without knowing it;
but that is nonsense. We were miserable.

I have concluded that we knew each other too well. Though accustomed to
gather together in my rooms of an evening in London, we had each his
private chambers to retire to, but in the _Arcadia_ solitude was
impossible. There was no escaping from each other.

[Illustration]

Scrymgeour, I think, said that we were unhappy because each of us acted
as if the house-boat was his own. We retorted that the boy--by no means
a William John--was at the bottom of our troubles, and then Scrymgeour
said that he had always been against having a boy. We had been opposed
to a boy at first, too, fancying that we should enjoy doing our own
cooking. Seeing that there were so many of us, this should not have
been difficult, but the kitchen was small, and we were always striking
against each other and knocking things over. We had to break a
window-pane to let the smoke out; then Gilray, in kicking the stove
because he had burned his fingers on it, upset the thing, and, before
we had time to intervene, a leg of mutton jumped out and darted into the
coal-bunk. Jimmy foolishly placed our six tumblers on the window-sill to
dry, and a gust of wind toppled them into the river. The draughts were a
nuisance. This was owing to windows facing each other being left open,
and as a result articles of clothing disappeared so mysteriously that we
thought there must be a thief or a somnambulist on board. The third or
fourth day, however, going into the saloon unexpectedly, I caught my
straw hat disappearing on the wings of the wind. When last seen it was
on its way to Maidenhead, bowling along at the rate of several miles
an hour. So we thought it would be as well to have a boy. As far as I
remember, this was the only point unanimously ag