Landlord Hull, of the White Hart Inn--what an ideal Boniface is this
same Hull, and what an ideal inn--promised a boatman to pole the punt
and look after my traps when the Henley regatta was over; and the owner
of my own craft, and of fifty other punts besides, went so far as to say
that he expected a man as soon as Lord Somebody-or-Other left for the
Continent, when His Lordship's waterman would be free, adding,
meaningly:
"Just at present, zur, when we do be 'avin' sich a mob lot from Lunnon,
'specially at week's-end, zur, we ain't got men enough to do our own
polin'. It's the war, zur, as has took 'em off. Maybe for a few day,
zur, ye might take a 'and yerself if ye didn't mind."
I waved the hand referred to--the forefinger part of it--in a
deprecating manner. I couldn't pole the lightest and most tractable punt
ten yards in a straight line to save my own or anybody else's life. Then
again, if I should impair the precision of my five fingers by any such
violent exercise, my brush would wabble as nervously over my canvas as a
recording needle across a steam-gauge.
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