Практика речи - Three men in a boat | Текст песни

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• Three men in a boat

W e got out at Sonning,1 and w ent for a walk round the village. It
is the most fairy-like nook on the whole river. It is m ore like a stage
village than one built of bricks and mortar. Every house is sm othered
in roses, and now, in early June, they were bursting forth in
clouds of dainty splendour. If you stop at Sonning, put up at the
\"Bull\", behind the church. It is a veritable picture of an old country
inn, with a green, square courtyard in front, where, on seats beneath
the trees, the old m en group of an evening to drink their ale
and gossip over village politics; with low quaint rooms and latticed
windows2 and awkward stairs and winding passages.
W e roam ed about sweet Sonning for an hour or so, and then,
it being too late to push on past Reading,3 we decided to go back to
one of the Shiplake islands, and put up there for the night. It was
still early when we got settled and George said that, as we had
plenty of time, it would be a splendid opportunity to try a good,
slap-up supper. He said he would show us w hat could be done up
the river in the way of cooking, and suggested that, with the vegetables
and the remains of the cold beef and general odds and ends,
we should make an Irish stew.4
It seem ed a fascinating idea. George gathered wood and m ade
a fire, and Harris and I started to peel the potatoes. I should never
have thought that peeling potatoes was such an undertaking.
The job turned out to be the biggest thing of its kind that I had ever
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been in. W e began cheerfully, one m ight almost say skittishly but
our light-heartedness was gone by the time the first potato was finished.
The m ore we peeled, the more peel there seem ed to be
left on; by the tim e we had got all the peel off and all the eyes out,
there was no potato left — at least none worth speaking of. George
cam e and had a look at it — it was about the size of pea-nut. He
said:
\"Oh, that w on't do! You're wasting them. You m ust scrape
them .\"
So we scraped them and that was harder work than peeling.
They are such an extraordinary shape, potatoes — all bum ps and
warts and hollows. W e worked steadily for five-and-twenty minutes,
and did four potatoes. Then we struck. W e said we should require
the rest of the evening for scraping ourselves.
I never saw such a thing as potato-scraping for m aking a fellow
in a mess. It seem ed difficult to believe that the potato-scrapings in
which Harris and I stood, half-smothered, could have come off four
potatoes. It shows you what can be done with econom y and care.
G eorge said it was absurd to have only four potatoes in an Irish
stew, so we washed half a dozen or so more and put them in without
peeling. W e also put in a cabbage and about half a peck5 of
peas. G eorge stirred it all up, and then he said that there seem ed to
be a lot of room to spare, so we overhauled both the hampers, and
picked out all the odds and ends and the rem nants, and added
them to the stew. There were half a pork pie and a bit of cold boiled
bacon left, and we put them in. Then George found half a tin of
potted salmon, and he em ptied that into the pot.
He said that was the advantage of Irish stew: you got rid of such
a lot of things. I fished out a couple of eggs that had got cracked,
and we put those in. George said they would thicken the gravy.
I forget the other ingredients, but I know nothing was wasted;
and I rem em ber that towards the end, M ontmorency, who had
evinced great interest in the proceedings throughout, strolled
away with an earnest and thoughtful air, reappearing, a few m inutes
afterwards, with a dead water-rat in his mouth, which he evidently
wished to present as his contribution to the dinner;
w hether in a sarcastic spirit, or with a general desire to assist,
I cannot say.
W e had a discussion as to w hether the rat should go in or not.
Harris said that he thought it would be all right, mixed up with the
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other things, and that every little helped; but G eorge stood up for
precedent! He said he had never heard of water-rats in Irish stew,
and he would rather be on the safe side, and not try experim ents.
Harris said:
\"If you never try a new thing how can you tell w hat it's like? It's
men such as you that ham per the w orld's progress. Think of the
m an who first tried German sausage!\"
It was a great success, that Irish stew. I d o n 't think I ever en ­
joyed a meal more. There was som ething so fresh and piquant
about it. O ne's palate gets so tired of the old hackneyed things:
here was a dish with a new flavour, with a taste like nothing else
on earth.
And it was nourishing, too. As George said, there was good stuff
in it. The peas and potatoes m ight have been a bit softer, but we all
had good teeth, so that did not m atter much; and as for the gravy,
it was a poem — a little too rich, perhaps, for a weak stom ach,
but nutritious.


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