Chapter Twenty Eight.
The pic-nic party—Sufferings by oil, ice, fire, and water—Upon the whole the “divarting vagabonds,” as the Thespian heroes and heroines are classically termed, are very happy, excepting Mr Winterbottom, whose feelings are by sitting down, down to zero.
One morning he came down to the hard, and, as usual, I expected that he would go down the river. I ran to my boat, and hauled in close.
“No, Jacob, no; this day you will not carry Caesar and his fortunes, but I have an order for you.”
“Thank you; sir; what is the play?”
“The play—pooh! no play; but I hope it will prove a farce, nevertheless, before it’s over. We are to have a pic-nic party upon one of those little islands up the river by Kew. All sock and buskin, all theatricals: if the wherries upset, the Hay-market may shut up, for it will be ‘exeunt omnes’ with all its best performers. Look you, Jacob, we shall want three wherries, and I leave you to pick out the other two—oars in each, of course. You must be at Whitehall steps exactly at nine o’clock, and I daresay the ladies won’t make you wait more than an hour or two, which, for them, is tolerably punctual.”
Mr Tinfoil then entered into the arrangement for remuneration, and walked away; and I was conning over in my mind whom I should select from my brother watermen, and whether I should ask old Stapleton to take the other oar in my boat, when I heard a voice never to be mistaken by me—
“Life is like a summer day
Warmed by a sunny ray.
“Lower away yet, Tom. That’ll do, my trump.
“Sometimes a dreary cloud,
Chill blast, or tempest loud.