"You know, ever since we've been down here we've been on the river every day, Charlie and I. His mother--Mrs. Mason, you know--doesn't care for the water; she says it's damp. But I think that's because she knows that two are company, and is tender-hearted--like you, my dearest Momkins! Besides, she likes fussing about and paying visits, and she is so good--I hope that I shall be as good as she is one of these fine days! But you can never tell! "Of course it was very nice being pulled about. Only Charlie was so aggravating! He wouldn't do in the least bit what you told him. I would say to him before we started: "'Charlie, do take me for a long row--now, promise me!' And he would say: "'Certainly. Fourteen miles out and fifteen in." "'Don't be silly! I wish you would--I do so like to be pulled.' "He would be standing on the bank with his back to the water, and with me just in front of him. He would stretch out his arm. "'Tip us your flipper!' He meant, 'Give me your hand.' When he chooses Charlie can be slangy. 'I'll pull you into the river.' "It was not the slightest use my talking. I would sigh, and get into the boat and hope for the best. But I never got it. No! "As soon as we had gone three or four hundred yards Charlie would pull towards a little island, which is just beyond the bend in the river--I don't know who put it there; I know that I often wished that it was further--and row right round it into a sort of little creek which was on the other side, which was just large enough to hold the boat, and where no one could see us because of the trees. So far as privacy was concerned we might as well have been in the heart of a virgin forest. And there Charlie would stop, and do nothing else but talk; though I'm bound to confess that he chose interesting subjects of conversation as a rule, because generally, when he wasn't talking of himself, he was talking of me. And it is such a help to conversation when one is well acquainted with the topic under discussion. But he did so annoy me, because he would never do what I told him. I wanted him to row me to Oxford, or somewhere. But he said it was so hot--I didn't feel hot!--and Oxford was twenty miles away, and more. That was nonsense, because quite little electric launches go there and back in a day. At least, I am nearly sure they do. "But what irritated me more than anything else was because he kept on asking me why, if I was so fond of rowing, with the thermometer four hundred degrees above bursting point--I don't believe it was anything like so hot as that, but that is what he said--I didn't row myself. He knew I couldn't. But I made up my mind that I would learn, and, what is more, I would teach myself: I would show him what I could do.