Chartering the punt had been easy. All I had had to do was to stroll
down the path bordering the river, run my eye over a group of boats
lying side by side like a school of trout with their noses up-stream,
pick out the widest, flattest, and least upsettable craft in the fleet,
decorate it with a pair of Turkey-red cushions from a pile in the
boathouse, and a short mattress, also Turkey-red--a good thing at
luncheon-hour for a tired back is a mattress--slip the key of the
padlock of the mooring-chain in my pocket and stroll back again.
The hiring of the man for days after my arrival at Sonning-on-Thames,
was more difficult, well-nigh impossible, except at a price per diem
which no staid old painter--they are all an impecunious lot--could
afford. There were boys, of course, for the asking; sunburnt,
freckle-faced, tousle-headed, barefooted little devils who, when my back
was turned, would do handsprings over my cushions, landing on the
mattress, or break the pole the first day out, leaving me high and dry
on some island out of calling distance; but full-grown, sober-minded,
steady men, who could pole all day or sit beside me patiently while I
worked, hand me the right brush or tube of color, or palette, or open a
bottle of soda without spilling half of it--that kind of man was scarce.
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