автордың кітабынан сөз тіркестері  Three Men in a Boat (to say nothing of the dog)

Jerome Klapka Jerome

Oh! you women, you make such a fuss over everything,"

And don’t stuff up your head with things you don’t understand

After that, he sat down and wrote out a prescription, and folded it up and gave it me, and I put it in my pocket and went out.

That is my opinion of tow – lines in general. Of course, there may be honourable exceptions; I do not say that there are not. There may be tow – lines that are a credit to their profession – conscientious, respectable tow – lines – tow – lines that do not imagine they are crochet – work, and try to knit themselves up into antimacassars the instant they are left to themselves. I say there MAY be such tow – lines; I sincerely hope there are. But I have not met with them.

This tow – line I had taken in myself just before we had got to the lock. I would not let Harris touch it, because he is careless. I had looped it round slowly and cautiously, and tied it up in the middle, and folded it in two, and laid it down gently at the bottom of the boat. Harris had lifted it up scientifically, and had put it into George’s hand. George had taken it firmly, and held it away from him, and had begun to unravel it as if he were taking the swaddling clothes off a new – born infant; and, before he had unwound a dozen yards, the thing was more like a badly – made door – mat than anything else.

There is something very strange and unaccountable about a tow – line. You roll it up with as much patience and care as you would take to fold up a new pair of trousers, and five minutes afterwards, when you pick it up, it is one ghastly, soul – revolting tangle.

I do not wish to be insulting, but I firmly believe that if you took an average tow – line, and stretched it out straight across the middle of a field, and then turned your back on it for thirty seconds, that, when you looked round again, you would find that it had got itself altogether in a heap in the middle of the field, and had twisted itself up, and tied itself into knots, and lost its two ends, and become all loops; and it would take you a good half – hour, sitting down there on the grass and swearing all the while, to disentangle it again.

We made George work, now we had got him. He did not want to work, of course; that goes without saying. He had had a hard time in the City, so he explained. Harris, who is callous in his nature, and not prone to pity, said:

"Ah! and now you are going to have a hard time on the river for a change; change is good for everyone. Out you get!"

He could not in conscience – not even George’s conscience – object, though he did suggest that, perhaps, it would be better for him to stop in the boat, and get tea ready, while Harris and I towed, because getting tea was such a worrying work, and Harris and I looked tired. The only reply we made to this, however, was to pass him over the tow – line, and he took it, and stepped

instead of getting into separate beds, as they thought they were doing, they both climbed into the same one without knowing it – one getting in with his head at the top, and the other

this happened before supper, George would have expressed wishes and desires concerning Harris’s fate in this world and the next that would have made a thoughtful man shudder.

three minutes later than that, Montmorency gave the first sign of contentment he had exhibited since we had started, and rolled over on his side, and spread his legs out; and then I said, "Ah!" and bent my head back, and bumped it against one of the hoops, but I did not mind it.

I had been told to stand where I was, and wait till the canvas came to me, and Montmorency and I stood there and waited, both as good as gold.