There was a saying current in the neighbourhood of the dispensary, to the effect that Gus Darley’s description of the Derby Day was the best Epsom salts ever invented for the cure of man’s diseases; and he has been known to come home from the races at ten o’clock at night, and assist at a sickbed (successfully), with a wet towel round his head, and a painful conviction that he was prescribing for two patients at once.
But all this time he is strolling by the swollen Sloshy, with his pipe in his mouth and a contemplative face, which ever and anon looks earnestly up the river. Presently he stops by a boat-builder’s yard, and speaks to a man at work.
“Well,” he says, “is that boat finished yet?”
“Yes, sir,” says the man, “quite finished, and uncommon well she looks too; you might eat your dinner off her; the paint’s as dry as a bone.”
“How about the false bottom I spoke of?” he asks.
“Oh, that’s all right, sir, two feet and a half deep, and six feet and a half long. I’ll tell you what, sir—no offence—but you must catch a precious sight more eels than I think you will catch, if you mean to fill the bottom of that ’ere punt.”
As the man speaks, he points to where the boat lies high and dry in the builder’s yard. A great awkward flat-bottomed punt, big enough to hold half-a-dozen people.
Gus strolls up to look at it. The man follows him.
He lifts up the bottom of the boat with a great thick loop of rope. It is made like a trapdoor, two feet and a half above the keel.
“Why,” said Gus, “a man could lie down in the keel of the boat, with that main deck over him.”
“To be sure he could, sir, and a pretty long un, too; though I don’t say much for its being a over-comfortable berth. He might feel himself rather cramped if he was of a restless disposition.”
Gus laughed, and said—“You’re right, he might, certainly, poor fellow! Come, now, you’re rather a tall chap, I should like to see if you could lie down there comfortably for a minute or so. We’ll talk about some beer when you come out.”
The man looked at Mr. Darley with rather a puzzled glance. He had heard the legend of the mistletoe bough. He had helped to build the boat, but for all that there might be a hidden spring somewhere about it, and Gus’s request might conceal some sinister intent; but no one who had once looked our medical friend in the face ever doubted him; so the man laughed and said—
“Well, you’re a rum un, whoever the other is” (people were rarely very deferential in their manner of addressing Gus Darley); “howsomedever, here’s to oblige you.” And the man got into the boat, and lying down, suffered Gus to lower the false bottom of it over him.
“How do you feel?” asks Gus. “Can you breathe?—have you plenty of air?”
“All right, sir,” says the man through a hole in the plank. “It’s quite a extensive berth, when you’ve once settled yourself, only it ain’t much calculated for active exercise.”
“Do you think you could stand it for half an hour?” Gus inquires.
“Lor, bless you, sir! for half-a-dozen hours, if I was paid accordin’.”
“Should you think half-a-crown enough for twenty minutes?”
“Well, I don’t know, sir; suppose you made it three shillings?”
“Very good,” said Gus; “three shillings it shall be. It’s now half-past twelve;” he looks at his watch as he speaks. “I’ll sit here and smoke a pipe; and if you lie quiet till ten minutes to one, you’ll have earned the three bob.”
Gus steps into the boat, and seats himself at the prow; the man’s head lies at the stern.
“Can you see me?” Gus inquires.
“Yes, sir, when I squints.”
“Very well, then, you can see I don’t make a bolt of it. Make your mind easy: there’s five minutes gone already.”
Gus finishes his pipe, looks at his watch again—a quarter to one. He whistles a scena from an opera, and then jumps out of the boat and pulls up the false bottom.
“All’s right,” he says; “time’s up.”
The man gets out and stretches his legs and arms, as if to convince himself that those members are unimpaired.
“Well, was it pretty comfortable?” Gus asks.
“Lor’ love you, sir! regular jolly, with the exception of bein’ rather warm, and makin’ a cove precious dry.”
Gus gives the man wherewith to assuage this drought, and says—
“You may shove the boat down to the water, then. My friend will be here in a minute with the tackle, and we can then see about making a start.”
The boat is launched, and the man amuses himself with rowing a few yards up the river, while Gus waits for his friend.
In about ten minutes his friend arrives, in the person of Mr. Joseph Peters, of the police force, with a couple of eel-spears over his shoulder (which give him somewhat the appearance of a dry-land Neptune), and a good-sized carpetbag, which he
