Three Men in a Boat

ions.-Cure for liver complaint in children.-We agree that we are overworked, and need rest.-A week on the rolling d

and Montmorency. We were sitting in my room, smoking, and talking abo

oing; and then George said that he had fits of giddiness too, and hardly knew what he was doing. With me, it was my liver that was out of order. I knew it was my liver that was out of o

to the conclusion that I am suffering from the particular disease therein dealt with in its most virulent

all I came to read; and then, in an unthinking moment, I idly turned the leaves, and began to indolently study diseases, generally. I forget which was the first distemper I p

expected, that I had that too,-began to get interested in my case, and determined to sift it to the bottom, and so started alphabetically-read up ague, and learnt that I was sickening for it, and that the acute stage would commence in about another fortnight. Bright's disease, I was relieved to find, I h

led. I reflected that I had every other known malady in the pharmacology, and I grew less selfish, and determined to do without housemaid's knee. Gout, in its most malignant stage, it would appear, had

quisition I should be to a class! Students would have no need to "walk the hospitals," if they had me. I

rt. It had stopped beating. I have since been induced to come to the opinion that it must have been there all the time, and must have been beating, but I cannot account for it. I patted myself all over my front, from what I call my waist up to my head, and I went a bit round each side, and a little way up the

g-room a happy, healthy man.

ill; so I thought I would do him a good turn by going to him now. "What a doctor wants," I said, "is practice. He shall have me. He will get more practice out

's the matt

sa

before I had finished. But I will tell you what is not the matter with me. I have not got housemaid's knee. Why I have not

how I came to d

xpecting it-a cowardly thing to do, I call it-and immediately afterwards butted me with the side of his head. After th

arest chemist's, and handed it in. The

he didn'

sa

re a c

s

s and family hotel combined, I might be able t

prescript

beefste

bitt

y 6

walk ever

1 sharp ev

ur head with things y

py result-speaking for myself-that my l

lar, I had the symptoms, beyond all mistake, the chief amon

As a boy, the disease hardly ever left me for a day. They did not know, then, that it was my liver.

say, "get up and do something for your living, c

ften cured me-for the time being. I have known one clump on the head have more effect upon my liver, and make me feel more anxious to

d-fashioned remedies are sometimes more e

w I felt when I got up in the morning, and William Harris told us how he felt when he went to bed; and George sto

there's never anything really

supposed we had better try to swallow a bit. Harris said a little something in one's stomach often kept the disease in check; a

he first half-hour or so, I seemed to take no interest whatever

state of health. What it was that was actually the matter with us, we none of us could be su

t is rest,"

as produced a general depression throughout the system. Change of scene, and

arge-sheet as a medical student, so that he naturally h

away a sunny week among its drowsy lanes-some half-forgotten nook, hidden away by the fairies, out of reach of the noisy world-some

I meant; where everybody went to bed at eight o'clock, and you couldn't ge

u want rest and change, y

does you good when you are going to have a coupl

er Columbus all rolled into one. On Tuesday, you wish you hadn't come. On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, you wish you were dead. On Saturday, you are able to swallow a little beef tea, and to sit up on deck, and answer with a wan, sweet smile when kind

f his health. He took a return berth from London to Liverpool; and when he got

was eventually sold for eighteenpence to a bilious-looking youth who had ju

why, you'll have enough to last you a lifetime; and as for exercise! why, you'll get mo

ck by train. He said the North-Weste

fore they started, the steward came to him to ask whether he would pay

two pounds five. He said for breakfast there would be fish, followed by a grill. Lunch was at one, and consisted of four co

e on the two-pound-five job (he

ed beef, and some strawberries and cream. He pondered a good deal during the afternoon, and at one time it seemed to him that he had been

erries and cream seemed happy,

of that two-pound-five to be worked off, and he held on to ropes and things and went down. A pleasant odour of onions and hot ham, m

n I get

this," was th

, and propped him up, ove

captain) and soda-water; but, towards Saturday, he got uppish, and went in for weak tea and dry toast, and on Monday he was gorgin

, with two pounds' worth of food on board

n him another day he thought

and would rather like it, but he would advise Harris and me not to think of it, as he felt sure we should both be ill. Harris said that, to himself, it was always a

their berths, and he and the captain were the only two living souls on board who were not ill. Sometimes it was he and the

ole boat-loads of them; but I never met a man yet, on land, who had ever known at all what it was to be sea-sick. Where

ing enigma easily enough. It was just off Southend Pier, I recollect, and he was leaning out th

id, shaking him by the shou

he only answer I could get;

om of a Bath hotel, talking about his voyages, and

ous query; "well, I did feel a little queer once, I confess. I

sa

y Southend Pier one day, and

e replied, with a

o Yarmouth, last F

eadache that afternoon. It was the pickles, you know. They were the most d

eaves and pitches, you move your body about, so as to keep it always straight. When the front of the ship rises, you lean forward, till the deck almost

ge s

o up the

e of scene would occupy our minds (including what there was of Harris's)

ous. He said he didn't very well understand how George was going to sleep any more than he did now, seeing that there were only twenty-four hours

a sixpenny one, which includes bread-and-butter and cake ad lib., and is cheap at the price, if

dea of George's; and we said it in a tone that seemed to somehow impl

e suggestion was Montmorency. He never

nery is not in my line, and I don't smoke. If I see a rat, you won't stop; and if I go to sleep, you get fo

e, however, and the