you?” he shouts cheerily. “I’ve dropped my hat overboard.”
Then: “Hi! Tom—Dick! can’t you hear?” not quite so affably this time.
Then: “Hi! Confound you , you dunder-headed idiots! Hi! stop! Oh you—!”
After that he springs up, and dances about, and roars himself red in the face, and curses everything he knows. And the small boys on the bank stop and jeer at him, and pitch stones at him as he is pulled along past them, at the rate of four miles an hour, and can’t get out.
Much of this sort of trouble would be saved if those who are towing would keep remembering that they are towing, and give a pretty frequent look round to see how their man is getting on. It is best to let one person tow. When two are doing it, they get chattering, and forget, and the boat itself, offering, as it does, but little resistance, is of no real service in reminding them of the fact.