quite forgot.

Well, we left the list to George, and he began it.

[Picture: Tent] "We won't take a tent," suggested George; "we will have a
boat with a cover. It is ever so much simpler, and more comfortable."

It seemed a good thought, and we adopted it. I do not know whether you
have ever seen the thing I mean. You fix iron hoops up over the boat,
and stretch a huge canvas over them, and fasten it down all round, from
stem to stern, and it converts the boat into a sort of little house, and
it is beautifully cosy, though a trifle stuffy; but there, everything has
its drawbacks, as the man said when his mother-in-law died, and they came
down upon him for the funeral expenses.

George said that in that case we must take a rug each, a lamp, some soap,
a brush and comb (between us), a toothbrush (each), a basin, some
tooth-powder, some shaving tackle (sounds like a French exercise, doesn't
it?), and a couple of big-towels for bathing. I notice that people
always make gigantic arrangements for bathing when they are going
anywhere near the water, but that they don't bathe much when they are
there.

[Picture: Sea-side scene] It is the same when you go to the sea-side. I
always determine--when thinking over the matter in London--that I'll get
up early every morning, and go and have a dip before breakfast, and I
religiously pack up a pair of drawers and a bath towel. I always get red
bathing drawers. I rather fancy myself in red drawers. They suit my
complexion so. But when I get to the sea I don't feel somehow that I
want that early morning bathe nearly so much as I did when I was in town.

On the contrary, I feel more that I want to stop in bed till the last
moment, and then come down and have my breakfast. Once or twice virtue
has triumphed, and I have got out at six and half-dressed myself, and
have taken my drawers and towel, and stumbled dismally off. But I
haven't enjoyed it. They seem to keep a specially cutting east wind,
waiting for me, when I go to bathe in the early morning; and they pick
out all the three-cornered stones, and put them on the top, and they
sharpen up the rocks and cover the points over with a bit of sand so that
I can't see them, and they take the sea and put it two miles out, so that
I have to huddle myself up in my arms and hop, shivering, through six
inches of water. And when I do get to the sea, it is rough and quite
insulting.

One huge wave catches me up and chucks me in