visitors that month) down by the Weir below the lock as far as Cliveden; up the backwater to the Mill-William stretched beside me while I worked, or pulling back and forth when a cool bottle-beer, of

The one thing lacking in his make-upand which only came into view when he turned his head-was the upper part of one ear. This was clipped as close as a terrier's Again he repeated the question-with a deprecatory smile, as if he already regretted his outburst.

"Is it a punt ye're wantin', sor?"

"Yes-and a man to pole it and look after me while I paint. I had old Norris for the past few years, but I hear he's gone back to gardening. Will you have time with your other work?”

"Time! I'll chuck my job if I don't." "No, you can do both,-Norris did. You can pole me out to where I want to work; bring me my lunch when you have yours, and come for me at night. You weren't here two years ago-were you?"

"No-I was with General French. Got this clip outside Kimberly-" and he touched his ear. "Been all my life on the river- Maidenhead and Bourne's End mostly and so when my time was up I come home and the boss here put me on." "A soldier! I thought so. I see now why you got mad. Wonder you didn't throw that chap into the river." I am a crank on the happiness one gets from the giving of tips and a half-penny man is the rock-bottom of meanness.

His face straightened.

"Well, we can't do that, sor-we can't never talk back. Got to grin and bear it or lose yer job. Learned that in the Hussahs. I didn't care for his money-maybe it was the way he did it that set me goin'-as if I was- Well-let it go! And it's a punt ye want? Yes, sor-come and pick it out." After that it was plain sailing-or punting. The picture of that London cad sprawling in the water, which my approval had created in his mind, had done it. And it was early and late too (there were few

Many years of tramping and boating up and down the Thames from Reading to Maidenhead, have taught me the ins and outs of the river. I know it as I do my own pocket (and there is more in that statement than you think-especially during regatta week).

First comes Sonning with its rose gardens and quaint brick bridge; and then Marlowe with that long stretch of silver bordered by nodding trees and dominated by the robber Inn-four shillings and six for a sawdust sandwich! Then Maidenhead, swarming with boats and city folks after dark (it is only a step from the landing to any number of curtained sittingrooms with shaded candles-and there be gay times at Maidenhead let me tell you!). And, between, best of all, lovely Cookham.

Here the river, crazy with delight, seems to lose its head and goes meandering about, poking its nose up back waters, creeping across meadows, flooding limpid shallows, mirroring oaks and willows upside down, surging up as if to sweep away a velvetshorn lawn, only to pour itself-its united self-into an open-mouthed lock, and so on to a saner life in a level stretch beyond. If you want a map giving these vagaries, spill a cup of tea and follow its big and little puddles with their connecting rivulets: ten chances to one it will come out right.

All this William and I took in for three unbroken weeks, my usual summer allotment on the Thames. Never was there such a breezy, wholesome companion; stories of his life in the Veldt; of his hospital experience over that same ear-"The only crack I got, sor, thank God!-except bein' 'alf starved for a week and down two months with the fever-" neither of which seemed to have caused him a moment's inconvenience; stories of the people living about him and those who came from London with a "'am sandwidge in a noospaper, and precious little more," rolled out of him by the hour.

And the poise of the man! When he lay