Three Men In A Boat - Chapter 1 - Classic Fiction Audiobook Read by Dr James Gill

three men in a boat to say nothing of the dog chapter one three invalids suffering of George and Harris a victim to 107 fatal maladies useful prescriptions pure for the liver complained in children we agree that we are overworked and need rest a week on the rolling deep George suggests the river Montmorency lodges and objection original motion carried by majority of three to one there were four of us George and William Samuel Harris myself and Montmorency we were sitting in my room smoking and talking about how bad we were bad for a medical point of view I mean of course we were all feeling seedy and we were quite nervous about it Harris said he felt such extraordinary fits of giddiness came over him at times and he hardly knew what he was doing and then George said that he had fits of giddiness too and hardly knew what he was doing with me it was my liver that was out of order I knew it was my liver which was out of order because I had been reading a patent liver pill circular in which would detailed the various symptoms by which a man could tell when his liver was out of order I had more it is the most extraordinary thing but I never read a patent medicine adverse meant without being impelled to the conclusion that I am suffering from the particular disease therein dealt with in its most virulent form the diagnosis seems in every case to correspond exactly with all the sensations that I have ever felt I remember going to the British Museum one day to read up the treatment for some slight ailment of which I had a touch hay fever my fancy it was I got down the book and read all I came to read and then in an unthinking moment I idly turned the leaves and began to incidentally study diseases general I forget which was the first distemper I plunged into some fearful devastating scourge I know and before I had glanced half down the list of premonitory symptoms it was borne upon me that I had fairly got it I sat for a while frozen with horror and then in the listless nests of despair I again turned over the pages I came to typhoid fever who read the symptoms and discovered that I had typhoid fever must have had it for months without knowing it wondered what else I'd got turned up some fighters danced found as I expected that I had that too began to get interested in my case and determined to sift it to the bottom and so started alphabetically read up a cue and learnt that I had a sickening for it and that the acute stage will commence in about another fortnight Bright's disease I was relieved to find I only had in a modified form and so far as I was concerned I might live for years cholera I had with severe complications and diphtheria I seem to have been born with I plotted conscientiously through the 26 letters and the only malady I could conclude that I had not God was housemaids knee I felt rather hurt about this at first it seemed somehow to be a sort of slight why hadn't I got housemaids knee why this invidious at reservation after a while however less grasping feelings prevailed I reflected that I had every other known malady to pharmacology only grew less selfish and determined to do without housemaids knee gout in its most malignant stage it would appear had seized me without my being aware of it and xym osis i had evidently been suffering from since boyhood there were no more diseases after xym OSIS so i concluded that there was nothing else than that with me i sat and pondered I thought what an interest in case I must be from a medical interview was an acquisition I should be to a class students wouldn't have no need to walk the hospitals if they had me I was a hospital in myself all they needed to do would were to walk around me and after that take their diploma well then I wondered how long I had to live I tried to examine myself I felt my pulse I could not feel any pulse at all then all of a sudden it seemed to start I pulled my watch and timed it I made it a hundred and forty seven to a minute I tried to feel my heart I could not feel my heart it had stopped beating I have since been induced to come to the opinion that it must have been there all the time and must have been beating but I cannot account for it I patted myself all over my front from what I call my waist up to my head and I went a bit round each side and a little way up the back but I could not feel or hear anything I tried to look at my tongue I stuck it out as far ever it will go and I shut one eye and tried to examine it to at the other I could only see the tip and the only thing I can gain from that was to feel more certain than ever before I had scarlet fever I had walked into that reading room a happy healthy man I crawled out of it a decrepit wreck I went to my medical man he is an old chum of mine and fills my pulse and longs my tongue and talks about the weather all for nothing when I fancy I am ill so I thought I would do him a good turn by going to him now what a doctor wants I said his practice and he shall have me he will get more practice out of me than 17-hundred of your ordinary commonplace patient patients with only one or two diseases each so I went straight up and saw him and he said well what is the matter with you I said I will not take up your time dear boy by telling you what is the matter with me life is brief and you might pass away before I had finished but I will tell you what is it not the matter with me I have not got maids knee why I have not got housemaids knee I cannot tell you but the fact remains I have not got it everything else however I have got and I told him how I came to discover it at all then he opened me looked down me clutched holds my wrist and then he hit me over the chest when I wasn't expecting it a cowardly thing to do I call it and immediately afterwards buttered me with the side of his head after that he sat down and wrote out a prescription and fold this up and gave it to me and I put it in my pocket and went out I did not open it I took it to the nearest chemist and handed it in the man read it and handed it back he said he didn't keep it I said you were a chemist he said I am a chemist if I was a cooperative store and family hotel combined I might be able to oblige you but being only a chemist hampers me I read the prescription it ran on pan beefsteak with one pint bitter beer every six hours one time I walk every morning one bed at 11:00 sharp every night and if and don't stuff your head with things you don't understand I followed the directions with the happy result speaking for myself that my life was preserved and still ongoing the present instance going back to the liver pill circular I had the symptoms beyond all mistake the chief among them being in general disinclination to work of any kind what I suffered in that way no luck no Tom can tell from my earliest infancy I have been a martyr to it as a boy the disease hardly left me for a day they did not know then that it was my liver medical science was in a far less advanced state than now and they used to put it down to laziness why you skulking little devil they would say get up and do something for your living country not knowing of course that I was ill and they didn't give me pills they gave me clumps on the side of the head and strange as it may appear those clumps on the head often cured me for the time being you know it is often so with those simple old-fashioned remedies are sometimes more efficacious than all the dispensary stuff we sat there for half an hour describing to each other our maladies I explained to George and William Harris I felt when I got up in the morning and William Harris told us how he felt when he went to bed George stood on the hearthrug and gave us clear and powerful piece of acting illustrative of how he felt in the night George fancies he is ill but there's never anything really the matter with him you know at this point mrs. poppets knocked on the door know if we were ready for supper we smiled sadly at each other and said we suppose we had better try to swallow a bit Harris said a little something in one's stomach often kept the disease in check and mrs. poppets brought the train and we drew up to the table and toyed with a little steak and onions and some rhubarb tart I must have been very weak at the time because I know after the first half-hour or so I seemed to take no interest whatsoever in my food an unusual thing for me and I didn't want any cheese this Duty done we refilled our glasses lit our pipes and resume the discussion upon the state of our health what it was that was actually the matter with us none of us could be sure of but the unanimous opinion was that it whatever it was have been brought on by overwork what we need is rest said Harris rest and a complete change said George the over strain upon our brains has produced a great and general depression throughout the system change of scene and the absence of the necessity of thought will restore the mental equilibrium George has a cousin who is usually described in the charge seat as a medical student so that he naturally has some family physician area way of putting things I agreed with George and suggested that we should seek out some retired old-world spot far from the madding crowd and dream away a sunny week among the drowsy lanes some half-forgotten nock hidden away by the fairies out of the reach of the noisy world some quaint perched area on the cliffs of time from whence the surging waves of the 19th century would sound far off and faint Harris said he thought it would be humpy he said he knew the sort of place I meant where everybody went to bed at 8 o'clock and you couldn't get a referee for love or money and had to walk 10 miles to get your Bakey no said Harris if you want rest and change you can't beat a sea trip I objected to the sea chip strongly a sea trip and does you good when you're going to have a couple of months of it but for a week it is a wicked you start on a Monday with the idea implanted in your bosom that you're going to enjoy yourself you wave area due to the boys on shore light your biggest pipe and swagger about the deck as if you were Captain Cook Sir Francis Drake and Christopher Columbus all rolled into one on Tuesday you wish you happen to come on Wednesday Thursday and Friday you wish you were dead on Saturday you're able to swallow a little beef tea and sit up on deck and answer with a wond sweet smile when kind-hearted people ask you how you feel now on Sunday you begin to walk about again and take solid food and on Monday morning as with your bank and umbrella in your hand you stand by the gunwale waiting to step ashore you begin to thoroughly like it I remember my brother-in-law going for short to sea trip once for the benefit of his health he took a return berth from London to Liverpool and when he got to Liverpool the only thing he was anxious about was to sell that return ticket it was offered around the town at a tremendous reduction so I am told and eventually sold for 18 pence to a bilious looking youth who'd been advertised by his medical men to go to the seaside and take exercise seaside my brother-in-law pressing the ticket affectional things into his hand why you'll have enough to last you a lifetime and as for exercise why you'll get more exercise sitting down on that ship the new wood turning somersaults on dry land he himself my brother-in-law came back by train he said the North Western Railway was healthy enough for him another fellow I knew went for a week's voyage around the coast and before they started the steward came to him and asked whether he would pay for each meal as he had it arranged beforehand for the whole series the steward recommended the latter course as who would come so much cheaper he said they would do him for the whole week at two pounds five he said for breakfast there will be fish followed by grill lunch was at 1:00 and consisted of four courses dinner at six soup fish entree joint poultry salad sweets cheese and dessert and a light meat supper at ten my friend thought that he would close on the two pounds five job he's a hearty eater and did sir lunch came just as they were off Sheerness he didn't feel as hungry as he thought he would so contented himself with a bit of boiled beef and some strawberries and cream he pondered a good deal during the afternoon and at one time it seemed to him that he had been eating nothing but boiled beef for weeks and at other times it seemed he must have been living on strawberries in cream for years neither the beef and all the strawberries and cream seemed happy either both seemed a discontented at 6:00 they came and told him dinner was ready the announcement aroused no enthusiasm within him but he felt that there was some of that two pounds five to be worked off and he held on to the ropes and things and went down a pleasant odor of onions and hot ham mingled with fried fish fresh fish and greens greeted him at the bottom of the ladder and then a steward came up with an oily smile and said what can I get you sir get me out of this was the feeble reply and they ran him up quick and propped him up and over the Leawood and left him for the next four days he lived a simple and blameless life on thin captain's biscuits I mean that the biscuits were thin not the captain and soda water but towards Saturday he got a fish and went for a week tea and dry toast and on Monday he was gorging himself on chicken broth he left the ship on Tuesday and it's and as it steamed away from the landing stage he'd gazed after it regretfully there she goes he said there she goes with two pounds worth of food on board that belongs to me and that I haven't had he said that if they had to give him and not given him another day he thought he could put it straight so I set my face against the sea trip not as I explained upon my own account I was never queer but I was afraid for George George said he should be alright but would rather like it but he would advise Harris and me not to think of it as he felt sure we would both be ill Harris said that to himself it was always a mystery how people manage to get sick at sea as though he thought people must do it on purpose from affectation said he often wished to be but never had been able to then he told us anecdotes of how he had gone across the channel when it had been so rough the passengers had to be tied into their berths and he and the captain were the only two living on living souls on board who are not ill sometimes it was he in the second mate who are not ill but it was generally he and one of the man if not he and one other man who does he by himself it's a curious fact that nobody is ever seasick on land at sea you come across lots of people very bad indeed all boatloads of them but I have never yet met a man on land who'd ever known at all what it was to be seasick where the thousands upon thousands of bad sailors that swarm it every ship hide themselves when they're on land is a mystery if most men will like a fellow I saw it Yarmouth boat one day I could account for the seeming enigma easily enough it was just off Southend pier I collect and he was leaning out through one of the portholes in a very dangerous position I went up to try and save him I come further in I said shaking him by the shoulder you'll be overboard Am I I wish I was was the only answer I could get and there I had to leave him throats afterwards I met him in the coffee room of the bath hotel talking about his voyages and explaining with the enthusiasm how he loved the sea good sailor he replied in answer to a mild young man seemed envious query well I did feel a little queer once I confess it was off Cape Horn the vessel was wrecked next morning I said weren't you a little shaky by Southend pier one day and wanted to be thrown overboard south in pier he replied was a puzzled expression yes going down to Yarmouth that's Friday three weeks oh ah yes he answered brightening up I remember now I did have a headache that afternoon it was the pickles you know they were the most disgraceful pickles and if I'd ever tasted it in a respectful boat did you have any for myself I have discovered an excellent preventative against seasickness and balancing myself you stand in the center of the deck and as the ship heaves and pitches you move your body about so as to keep it always straight one in the front of the ship Rises you lean forward till the deck almost touches your nose and when it's back gets up you lean backwards this is all very well for an hour - but you can't balance yourself for a week after George said let's go up the river he said we should have fresher exercise and quiet the constant change of scene would occupy our minds including what there was of Harris's and the hard work would give us a good appetite and make us sleep well Harris said he didn't think George ought to do anything that would have the tendency to make him sleep here than he already was as that might be dangerous he said he didn't very well understand how George was going to sleep any more than he did now sing that there are only 24 hours in each day summer and winter alike but thought that if he did sleep any more he might just as well be dead and so save his board and lodging Harris said however that the river would suit him to a tee I don't know what a tea is except a six penny one which includes bread and butter and cake adlib and is cheap at the price if you haven't had any dinner it seems to suit everybody however which is greatly to his credit it suited me to a tee - and Harris and I both said it was a good idea of George's and that we said it in a tone that seemed to somehow imply we were surprised that George should have come out of a sensible idea the only one who was not struck with suggestion was Montmorency he never did care for the river did Montmorency it's all very well for you fellows he says you like it but I don't there's nothing for me to do the scenery is not in my line and I don't smoke if I see a rat you won't stop and if I go to sleep you'll get fooling about to the boat and slopped me overboard if you ask me I call the whole thing Bally foolishness we were three to one however and the motion was carried end of chapter one