Three Men in a Boat / Three Men on the Bummel

— 47 —
fatalities, and the weather forecast, which latter prophesied
“ra<strong>in</strong>, cold, wet to f<strong>in</strong>e” (whatever more than usually ghastly
th<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> weather that may be), “occasional local thunderstorms,
east w<strong>in</strong>d, with general depression over the Midland
Counties (London and Channel). Bar. fall<strong>in</strong>g.”
I do th<strong>in</strong>k that, of all the silly, irritat<strong>in</strong>g tomfoolishness by
which we are plagued, this “weather-forecast” fraud is about
the most aggravat<strong>in</strong>g. It “forecasts” precisely what happened
yesterday or a the day before, and precisely the opposite of
what is go<strong>in</strong>g to happen to-day.
I remember a holiday of m<strong>in</strong>e be<strong>in</strong>g completely ru<strong>in</strong>ed one
late autumn by our pay<strong>in</strong>g attention to the weather report of
the local newspaper. “Heavy showers, with thunderstorms,
may be expected to-day,” it would say on Monday, and so we
would give up our picnic, and stop <strong>in</strong>doors all day, wait<strong>in</strong>g
for the ra<strong>in</strong>. — And people would pass the house, go<strong>in</strong>g off <strong>in</strong>
wagonettes and coaches as jolly and merry as could be, the sun
sh<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g out, and not a cloud to be seen.
“Ah!” we said, as we stood look<strong>in</strong>g out at them through the
w<strong>in</strong>dow, “won’t they come home soaked!”
And we chuckled to th<strong>in</strong>k how wet they were go<strong>in</strong>g to get,
and came back and stirred the fire, and got our books, and arranged
our specimens of seaweed and cockle shells. By twelve
o’clock, with the sun pour<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong>to the room, the heat became
quite oppressive, and we wondered when those heavy showers
and occasional thunderstorms were go<strong>in</strong>g to beg<strong>in</strong>.
“Ah! they’ll come <strong>in</strong> the afternoon, you’ll f<strong>in</strong>d,” we said to
each other. “Oh, won’t those people get wet. What a lark!”
At one o’clock, the landlady would come <strong>in</strong> to ask if we
weren’t go<strong>in</strong>g out, as it seemed such a lovely day.
“No, no,” we replied, with a know<strong>in</strong>g chuckle, “not we. We
don’t mean to get wet — no, no.”
And when the afternoon was nearly gone, and still there was
no sign of ra<strong>in</strong>, we tried to cheer ourselves up with the idea
that it would come down all at once, just as the people had
started for home, and were out of the reach of any shelter, and