Three men in a boat / Трое в лодке, не считая собаки. Книга для чтения на английском языке. Джером Клапка Джером

inspire Harris.

      4. Camping out in rainy weather is not pleasant.

      5. Rainwater is the chief component of diet at supper.

      6. You wake up and realize that something terrible really has happened.

      7. To look at Montmorency you would imagine that he was an angel sent upon the earth.

      8. Harris said he’d had enough oratory for one night.

      9. Answer the following questions.

      1. Why do the friends start without Gorge? Will he go with them?

      2. What do George and the narrator call “wild and free”? Why?

      3. Is it possible to inspire Harris? Give an example.

      4. Is camping out pleasant in rainy weather? Why / why not?

      5. Is it difficult to fix a tent?

      6. What does your supper consist of when camping out in rainy weather?

      7. What decision did the friends make?

      8. Why does Montmorency look like an angel?

      9. What does the narrator think about Montmorency’s staying on earth?

      10. What was the last thing to discuss? Did the friends discuss it?

      10. Retell the chapter for the persons of the narrator, Harris, George, Montmorency.

      CHAPTER III

      So, on the following evening, we again assembled, to discuss and arrange our plans.

      Harris said:

      “Now, the first thing to settle is what to take with us. Now, you get a bit of paper and write down, J., and you get the grocery catalogue, George, and somebody give me a bit of pencil, and then I’ll make out a list.”

      That’s Harris all over29 – so ready to take the burden of everything himself, and put it on the backs of other people.

      He always reminds me of my poor Uncle Podger. You never saw such an agitation in a house, in all your life, as when my Uncle Podger undertook to do a job. A picture would30 have come home from the frame-maker’s, and be standing in the dining-room, waiting to be put up; and Aunt Podger would ask what was to be done with it, and Uncle Podger would say:

      “Oh, you leave that to me. Don’t you, any of you, worry yourselves about that. I’ll do all that.”

      And then he would take off his coat, and begin. He would send the girl out for nails, and then one of the boys after her to tell her what size to get; and, from that, he would gradually start the whole house31.

      “Now you go and get me my hammer, Will,” he would shout; “and you bring me the rule, Tom; and I shall want the step-ladder, and I had better have a kitchen-chair, too; and, Jim! you run round to Mr. Goggles, and tell him, ‘Pa’s kind regards, and hopes his leg’s better; and will he lend him his spirit-level?’ And don’t you go, Maria, because I shall want somebody to hold me the light; and when the girl comes back, she must go out again for a bit of picture-cord; and Tom! – where’s Tom? – Tom, you come here; I shall want you to hand me up the picture.”

      And then he would lift up the picture, and drop it, and it would come out of the frame, and he would try to save the glass, and cut himself; and then he would run round the room, looking for his handkerchief. He could not find his handkerchief, because it was in the pocket of the coat he had taken off, and he did not know where he had put the coat, and all the house had to leave off looking for his tools, and start looking for his coat; while he would dance round and hinder them.

      “Doesn’t anybody in the whole house know where my coat is? Six of you! – and you can’t find a coat that I put down not five minutes ago!”

      Then he’d get up, and find that he had been sitting on it, and would call out:

      “Oh, you can give it up! I’ve found it myself now. You might as well ask the cat to find anything as expect you people to find it.”

      And, when half an hour had been spent in tying up his finger, and a new glass had been got, and the tools, and the ladder, and the chair, and the candle had been brought, he would have another go, the whole family, including the girl and the housemaid, standing round in a semi-circle, ready to help. Two people would have to hold the chair, and a third would help him up on it, and hold him there, and a fourth would hand him a nail, and a fifth would pass him up the hammer, and he would take hold of the nail, and drop it.

      “There!” he would say, in an injured tone, “now the nail’s gone.”

      And we would all have to go down on our knees and look for it, while he would stand on the chair, and grunt, and want to know if he was to be kept there all the evening. The nail would be found at last, but by that time he would have lost the hammer.

      “Where’s the hammer? What did I do with the hammer? Great heavens! Seven of you, being round there, and you don’t know what I did with the hammer!”

      We would find the hammer for him, and then he would have lost sight32 of the mark he had made on the wall, where the nail was to go in, and each of us had to get up on the chair, beside him, and see if we could find it; and we would each discover it in a different place, and he would call us all fools, one after another, and tell us to get down.

      At last, Uncle Podger would get the spot fixed again, and put the point of the nail on it with his left hand, and take the hammer in his right hand. And, with the first blow, he would smash his thumb, and drop the hammer, with a yell, on somebody’s toes.

      Aunt Maria would mildly observe that, next time Uncle Podger was going to hammer a nail into the wall, she hoped he’d let her know in time, so that she could make arrangements to go and spend a week with her mother while it was being done.

      “Oh! you women, you make such a fuss33 over everything,” Uncle Podger would reply. “Why, I like doing a little job of this sort.”

      And then he would have another try, and, at the second blow, the nail would go clean through the plaster, and half the hammer after it. Then we had to find the rule and the string again, and a new hole was made;

      and, about midnight, the picture would be up – very crooked and insecure, and everybody dead beat and wretched34 – except Uncle Podger.

      “There you are,” he would say, stepping heavily off the chair and surveying the mess he had made with evident pride. “Why, some people would have had a man in to do a little thing like that!”

      Harris will be just that sort of man when he grows up, I know, and I told him so. I said I could not permit him to take so much labour upon himself.

      I said:

      “No; you get the paper, and the pencil, and the catalogue, and George write down, and I’ll do the work.”

      The first list we made out had to be torn up. It was clear that the Thames would not allow of the navigation of a boat large enough to take the things we had written down.

      George said:

      “You know we are on a wrong way altogether. We must not think of the things we could do with, but only of the things that we can’t do without35.”

      George comes out really sensible at times. You’d be surprised. I call that downright wisdom, not just as regards the present case, but with reference to our trip up the river of life, generally. How many people, on that voyage, load up the boat with a store of foolish things which they think essential to the pleasure and comfort of the trip, but which are really only useless lumber.

      How they pile the

29

that’s Harris all over – в этом весь Харрис

30

would – (зд.) служебный глагол, выражающий привычное действие, относящееся к прошедшему времени

31

and, from that, he would gradually start the whole house – и с этого момента он постепенно втягивает в работу весь дом

32

to lose sight of smb / smth – потерять из виду кого-либо / что-либо

33

to make a fuss – поднимать шум

34

dead beat and wretched – устали и валятся с ног

35

to do without – обходиться без