k bridge; and
then Marlowe with that long stretch of silver bordered by nodding trees
and dominated by the robber Inn--four shillings and six for a sawdust
sandwich! Then Maidenhead, swarming with boats and city folks after
dark (it is only a step from the landing to any number of curtained
sitting-rooms with shaded candles--and there be gay times at Maidenhead,
let me tell you!). And, between, best of all, lovely Cookham.

Here the river, crazy with delight, seems to lose its head and goes
meandering about, poking its nose up backwaters, creeping across
meadows, flooding limpid shallows, mirroring oaks and willows upside
down, surging up as if to sweep away a velvet-shorn lawn, only to pour
itself--its united self--into an open-mouthed lock, and so on to a saner
life in a level stretch beyond. If you want a map giving these vagaries,
spill a cup of tea and follow its big and little puddles with their
connecting rivulets: ten chances to one it will come out right.

All this William and I took in for three unbroken weeks, my usual
summer allotment on the Thames. Never was there such a breesy, wholesome
companion; stories of his life in the Veldt; of his hospital experience
over that same ear--"The only crack I got, sor, thank God!--except bein'
'alf starved for a week and down two months with the fever--" neither of
which seemed to have caused him a moment's inconvenience; stories of
the people living about him and those who came from London with a "'am
sandwidge in a noospaper, and precious little more," rolled out of him
by the hour.

And the poise of the man! When he lay stretched out beside me on
the grass while I worked--an old bivouac attitude--he kept still; no
twitching of legs or stretching of arms--lay as a big hound does, whose
blood and breeding necessitate repose.

And we were never separated. First a plunge overboard, and then a pull
back for breakfast, and off again with the luncheon tucked under the
seat--and so on until the sun dropped behind the hills.

The only days on which this routine of work and play had to be changed
were Sundays and holidays. Then my white umbrella would loom up as large
as a circus tent, the usual crowd surging about its doors. As you cannot
see London for the people, so you cannot see the river for boats on
these days--all sorts of boats--wherries, tubs, launches, racing crafts,
shells, punts--everything that can be poled, pulled, or wobbled, and in
each one the invariable