Jack Babb

Is Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat the funniest book in the English language? Many people, over 100 years after publication, would say so.  The hilarious misadventures of a merry, but scandalously lazy band of well-to-do men---and a plucky  fox terrier named Montmorency---on an idyllic cruise along the River Thames.  What they want is rest.  What they find, instead, is one hapless catastrophe after another.

The original production of this stage adaptaion of Three Men in a Boat took place at the International Theatre, Vienna.  It premiered September 15, 2009.  The cast was:

J            Eric Lomas

Harris     Brian Hattfield

George   Jack Babb

Three Men in a Boat

By Jerome K. Jerome

Adapted for the stage by Jack Babb

Excerpts from this script are made available here for perusal purposes only.

To have a free copy of the full script emailed to you and for questions

concerning performance rights please contact me at scripts@jackbabb.com

Scene 1-a

(The stage is divided into two acting areas. Upstage is a representation of a traditional double sculling skiff. At stage right is the stern of the skiff with a rudder and two rudder lines leading to a bench with a low back. At stage left is the prow of the skiff and a low bench for the sculler to sit at. The skiff sits on a low platform that is roughly three meters long and one meter wide. Downstage is Jerome's drawing room. There is a sideboard down stage right, an armchair and small table just right of center and a divan just left of center. Sound- music. As music plays out the curtain opens to reveal Jerome, George, and Harris standing down center with glasses of port in their hands. Lights- up full. They address the audience.)

JEROME The chief beauty of this story lies not so much in its literary style,

HARRIS For it has none.

JEROME as in its simple truthfulness.

GEORGE It is simply a record of events that really happened.

HARRIS All that has been done is to colour them.

JEROME And, for this, no extra charge has been made. To begin with, there were four of us. George.

GEORGE Pleased to meet you. (He sits on the divan)

JEROME Harris, and myself- Jerome.

HARRIS J to his friends. (He sits in the chair)

JEROME And, last but not least, Montmorency, my fox terrier. (George barks and Jerome pats the invisible dog on the head) Good boy.

HARRIS We were sitting around, drinking port, and talking about how bad we were.

GEORGE Well, bad from a medical point of view, of course.

HARRIS Sometimes I have such extraordinary fits of giddiness that I hardly know what I am doing.

GEORGE Me too.

HARRIS You never know what you are doing.

JEROME My liver is out of order.

HARRIS Why do you say that?

JEROME I have just been reading this circular, which details all the symptoms by which a man can tell when his liver is out of order, and I have all of them.

HARRIS Where did you read this?

JEROME An advertisement for liver pills.

HARRIS Yes, I have never read a medicine advertisement without thinking that I am suffering from the particular disease in its most virulent form.

GEORGE That's true, I remember going to the British Museum to read up on some slight ailment of which I had a touch - hay fever, I fancy it was. Well, I fell into studying diseases generally. I came to typhoid fever read the symptoms and discovered that I had typhoid fever. Must have had it for some months without knowing it.

JEROME (to audience) George always fancies that he is ill, but theres never anything really the matter with him, you know.

GEORGE Well, I wondered what else I had and so started looking up maladies alphabetically. Read up ague, and learnt that the acute stage would commence in about another fortnight. Brights disease, I was relieved to find, I had only in a modified form. However, cholera I had with severe complications, and diphtheria I seem to have been born with. I read through all twenty-six letters of the alphabet, and the only malady I could conclude I had not got was housemaids knee. I wondered how long I had to live. I had walked into that reading-room a happy, healthy man. I crawled out a decrepit wreck.

JEROME Did you go to the doctor?

GEORGE Yes. I said to my medical man, I said-I will not take up your time, dear boy, with 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 NOT the matter with me. I have not got housemaids knee. Why I have not got housemaids knee, I cannot tell you- but the fact remains that I have not got it. Everything else, however, I HAVE got. And I told him how I came to discover it all. Then he opened me and looked down me, and clutched hold of my wrist, and then he hit me over the chest when I wasnt expecting it a cowardly thing to do, I call it and immediately afterwards butted me with the side of his head. After that, he sat down and wrote out a prescription.

JEROME What was the treatment?

GEORGE 1 pound beefsteak with 1 pint bitter every 6 hours. 1 ten mile walk every morning. 1 bed at 11 sharp every night, and dont stuff up your head with things you dont understand.

JEROME Good advice, but getting back to my liver- I have the symptoms, beyond all mistake, the chief among them being a general disinclination to work of any kind.

HARRIS I know a simple, old-fashioned remedy for that.

JEROME What is it? (Harris hits Jerome on the side of the head with his newspaper.)

HARRIS Get up and do some work! Simple, old-fashioned remedies are often the best. (George barks) You see- Montmorency agrees with me.

JEROME It always seems to me that I am doing more work than I should do. It is not that I object to the work, mind you- I like work, it fascinates me. I can sit and LOOK at it for hours. I take a great pride in my work- I take it out every now and then and dust it.

HARRIS Yes, J, no man keeps his work in a better state of preservation than you do.

GEORGE However, the serious fact remains that you are overworked. We all are. What we want is rest. Rest and a complete change. We should seek out some retired, old-world spot, and dream away a sunny week among its drowsy lanes.

HARRIS George, I don't think you ought to do anything that would make you sleepier than you already are, it might be dangerous.

JEROME (to audience) Our friend George likes to sleep.

HARRIS (to audience) Yes, George sleeps all night long and then he gets up and goes to sleep at the bank from ten to four each day.

JEROME (to audience) Except Saturdays, when they wake him up and put him outside at two.

GEORGE (to audience) That's not true. No lads, what we want is some half-forgotten nook, hidden away, out of reach of the noisy world.

HARRIS No, no, no. I know the sort of place you are talking about George. One of those places where everybody goes to bed at eight o'clock and you have to walk ten miles to get your tobacco. No, if you want rest and change, you cant beat a sea trip.

JEROME No, a sea trip is only good when you have months. You can't do it in a week. (to audience) You start on Monday, don't you, with the idea implanted in your bosom that you are going to enjoy yourself. You wave an airy adieu 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. And then the boat starts moving. Up and down. Up and down. Up and down. On Tuesday, you wish you hadnt come. On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, you wish you were dead. On Saturday, you are able to swallow a little beef tea, and to sit up on deck, and when kind-hearted souls ask you how you feel now you answer with a wan, sweet smile- thank you...yes. On Sunday, you begin to walk about again, and take solid food. And on Monday morning, just as you are beginning to thoroughly enjoy it, you are found standing on deck with your bag and umbrella in your hand waiting to step ashore. No. You need months for a sea trip.

HARRIS (to audience) You know, it is a curious fact, but nobody is ever sea-sick on land. I never met a man on land, yet, who would admit to having ever been sea-sick. It's like a fellow I saw on the Yarmouth boat one day. He was leaning out through one of the port-holes in a very dangerous position. Come further in - I said- youll be overboard. The only answer I could get was: Oh my! I wish I was. Very bad off indeed. Three weeks afterwards, I met him in the coffee-room of an hotel, talking about his voyages, and explaining how he loved the sea. Well, I did feel a little sick ONCE - he said- It was off Cape Horn. The vessel was wrecked the next morning. I said: Werent you a little shaky on the Yarmouth boat one day, and wanted to be thrown overboard Oh, ah yes, I did have a headache that afternoon. It was the pickles, you know. They were the most disgraceful pickles I ever tasted in a respectable boat. Did you have any?

GEORGE I have discovered an excellent preventive against sea- sickness, in balancing myself.

JEROME Balancing yourself?

GEORGE Come here, let me show you. You stand in the centre of the deck, J, and as the ship heaves and pitches, you move your body about. No, no, no keep it straight. When the front of the ship rises, you lean forward, till the deck almost touches your nose; and when its back end gets up, you lean backwards.

JEROME That is all very well for an hour or two, but you cant balance yourself for a week.

HARRIS It is a mystery to me how people manage to get sea-sick at sea. I have often wished to be sea-sick at sea, but have never been able to be. Once I went across the Channel when it was so rough that the passengers had to be tied into their berths, the captain and myself were the only two living souls on board who were not ill.

GEORGE (to audience) Sometimes, when Harris tells this story, it is he and the second mate who were not ill. Generally it is he and one other person.

JEROME Though I have heard the story when it was just he alone.

GEORGE Indeed. I know chaps, lets take a boat trip up the Thames.

HARRIS A boat trip up the Thames. That would suit me to a T

JEROME A boat trip up the Thames. Good idea George. (Harris barks.)

GEORGE Montmorency doesn't seem too keen on the idea at all.

JEROME He never did care for the river, did Montmorency. 'Its all very well for you fellows,' he says; 'you like it, but I dont. Theres nothing for me to do.' Sorry Monty, it's three to one, motion carried. We shall be three men in a boat. (Harris barks) To say nothing of the dog.

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Scene 4

JEROME We got to Waterloo station at eleven. (Lights- up full. George will play various men in Waterloo station and is standing down right. Jerome and Harris cross to him) Excuse me, do you know where the eleven-five for Kingston starts from?

MAN I'm not quite sure, sir- but if I were you, I should try platform one. (He points stage left. During the following Jerome and Harris cross downstage of the furniture to stage left and around upstage of the furniture and then back to downstage right. George wheels the sideboard off stage right and returns to his original position.)

JEROME Come along, Monty.

HARRIS Nobody at Waterloo ever does know where a train is going to start from, or where a train when it does start is going to, or anything about it.

JEROME Excuse me, is this the eleven-five for Kingston?

MAN I don't believe it is.

JEROME Do you know where the eleven-five for Kingston starts from?

MAN No. But I have heard a rumour that it will go from platform two. (He points stage left. During the following Jerome and Harris cross downstage of the furniture to stage left and around upstage of the furniture and then back to downstage right. George strikes the chair to off stage right and returns.)

JEROME Come along, Monty.

HARRIS We can't even find a porter to take our luggage. And if we did find one, he wouldn't know where to put them anyway. We would wind up in Wales, our bags would wind up in Scotland, and Monty would end up in Australia.

JEROME Excuse me, is this the eleven-five for Kingston?

MAN No,no,no,no,no,no,no,no......no.

JEROME Do you know where the eleven-five for Kingston starts from?

MAN No. But I just met a man, who said he had seen it at platform 3. (He points upstage. During the following Jerome and Harris Cross upstage of the divan to stage left- look around a little and then cross back around downstage again to center. George puts the side table on the divan and wheels them to off stage right and meets them center stage.)

HARRIS Watch out, Monty! This place reminds me of the maze at Hampton Court. I went in to that maze once and ended up getting a whole group of people hopelessly lost. At last we called out for the maze keeper, and the man told us to stop where we were, and he would come to us. He was a young keeper, as luck would have it, and new to the business; and when he got in, he couldnt find us, and then HE got lost.

JEROME Excuse me, is this the eleven-five for Kingston?

MAN I couldn't say. I believe this is the Southampton express, or else the Windsor loop. I couldn't say. In any case, I'm quite sure this isn't the Kingston train.

JEROME How on earth could you be sure?

MAN I couldn't say. But if I were you, I should try platform 5.

JEROME What happened to platform 4.

MAN I couldn't say. (During the following Jerome and Harris cross downstage- to stage right- and then up around to upstage left meeting George.)

HARRIS We had to wait till one of the older maze keepers came back from his dinner before we got out.

JEROME Yes, very amusing story, Harris, you must tell it to me at great length sometime. Excuse me, Is this the Eleven-five for Kingston?

MAN Well, I couldnt say for certain of course, but I rather think I am. Anyhow, if I'm not the Eleven-five for Kingston, I'm pretty confident I am the 9:32 for Virginia Water, or the 10 a.m. express for the Isle of Wight, or somewhere in that direction. Anyway, we'll all know when we get there.

JEROME (Jerome takes a coin out of his pocket) Here is half a crown. Could you please BE the eleven-five for Kingston. Nobody will ever know, on this line what you are, or where youre going. You know the way, don't you?

MAN Well, I dont know, but I suppose SOME trains got to go to Kingston- and Ill do it. Thank you very kindly, sir.

HARRIS (George exits with hamper) (To Audience) Thus we got to Kingston by the London and South-Western Railway. We learnt, afterwards, that the train we had come by was really the Exeter mail, and that they had spent hours at Waterloo, looking for it, and nobody knew what had become of it.

JEROME (To Audience) Our boat was waiting for us at Kingston just below bridge, and to it we wended our way, and round it we stored our luggage, and into it we stepped with myself at the sculls and Harris at the tiller-lines, and Montmorency, unhappy and deeply suspicious, in the prow, out we shot on to the waters of the Thames, which, for a fortnight, were to be our home. (Sound- music. Lights- backlighting. Jerome and Harris set the luggage up in the boat. They put the large steamer trunk behind the skulls- stage right- and the food hamper behind the bench where one operates the tiller lines- stage left. Sound- music fades out. Lights- up on the boat. Jerome is miming sculling, Harris is reading a travel guide.)

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Scene 6

MAN Here- do you fellows realize that you are trespassing?

HARRIS J, did you know that we are trespassing?

JEROME I haven't given the matter sufficient thought.

HARRIS We haven't t given the matter sufficient thought.

MAN Well you are bloody trespassing. Can't you read the bloody sign?

JEROME So we are. Thank you for letting us know.

HARRIS Yes, thank you very much. Would you like some bread and jam?

MAN No I don't want any bloody bread and jam.

JEROME I wonder why he doesn't want bread and jam.

HARRIS I fancy he must belong to some society sworn to abstain from bread and jam.

MAN I shall tell my master about this. (Harris barks several times)

JEROME Monty, come here. (He gets off the boat to retrieve Montmorency)

MAN If you are here when I get back I am going to bloody well chuck you both into the bloody river!

HARRIS You should have let Monty have a go at him.

JEROME I want to tear down that sign, and hammer him over the head with it until I have killed him, and then I will bury him, and put the board up over the grave as a tombstone.

HARRIS (Coming off the boat) And then we'll slaughter the whole of his family and all his friends and relations, and then burn down his house and sing a comic song over the embers.

JEROME Thats possibly going a bit far.

HARRIS Maybe the song isnt necessary.

JEROME (to audience) You dont understand the service I have just rendered to mankind. It is one of Harris fixed ideas that he can sing a comic song.

HARRIS I CAN sing a comic song.

GEORGE (entering from down right with a piano stool, which he sets center and sits on) No you can't. (to audience) All his friends know that he cant, never will be able to, and shouldnt be allowed to try.

JEROME (to audience) When Harris is at a party, and is asked to sing, he replies:

HARRIS Well, I can only sing a COMIC song, you know. Im afraid its a very old thing, you know. I expect you all know it, you know. But its the only thing I know, you know. Its the Judges song out of PINAFORE no, I dont mean PINAFORE I mean you know what I mean the other thing, you know. You must all join in the chorus, you know.

JEROME (to audience) Brilliant performance of prelude to the Judges song in Trial by Jury by nervous Pianist. (Sound- Judges song. George, playing the nervous pianist mimes playing the piano. At the end of the prelude George and Harris Freeze. Music out.) Harris, however, sings the Admiral's song out of HMS Pinafore. (Sound- Judges song again)

HARRIS When I was young I served a term As office-boy to an attorneys firm. (Sound-piano stops.) I swept the windows and I swept the door, And I

NERVOUS PIANIST Mr. Harris, Im afraid theres a mistake somewhere.

HARRIS Its all right. Youre doing it very well, indeed go on.

NERVOUS PIANIST Yes, but what are you singing?

HARRIS Why the Judges song out of Trial by Jury. Dont you know it?

JEROME (crossing over) No, youre not, you chuckle-head, youre singing the Admirals song from PINAFORE.

HARRIS No I'm not! It's the Judges song. Let's begin again, shall we.

JEROME (sotto- to George) If I were you, I'd play the Admirals song

NERVOUS PIANIST (sotto) Thank you. (Jerome crosses stage left. Sound-Prelude to the Admirals song.)

JEROME (to audience) Nervous pianist, thereupon, starts prelude to the Admirals song, and, of course, Harris commences to sing the Judges song.

HARRIS When I good friends was called to the bar, I'd an appetite fresh and hearty... (music has stopped) By Jove! I beg your pardon. Of course Ive been mixing up the two songs. It was J that confused me, you know. Now then, lets begin again, shall we.

NERVOUS PIANIST Yes, but which song will you sing?

HARRIS The Admiral's song. (Sound- The Admiral's song)

JEROME (to audience) You dont look for much of a voice in a comic song. You dont expect correct phrasing or vocalization. But you do expect a man to know the words.

HARRIS

When I was young I served a term As office-boy to an attorneys firm.

I swept the windows and I swept the door, And I `

No no, I cleaned the windows of the big front door. And I polished up the floor no, dash it I beg your pardon funny thing, I cant think of that line. And I and I Oh, well, well get on to the chorus, and chance it (SINGS):

And I diddle-diddle-diddle-diddle-diddle-diddle-de, Till now I am the ruler of the Queens navee. (music out) Now then, the chorus it is the last two lines repeated, you know. And he diddle-diddle-diddle-diddle-diddle-diddle-deed, Till now he is the ruler of the Queens navee.

JEROME (to audience) And Harris never sees what an ass he is making of himself, and how he is annoying a lot of people who never did him any harm.

(Sound- the Admiral's song refrain. Lights- cross fade to back lighting. Jerome and Harris cross to boat. George exits, taking the stool. Lights- up on boat. This time Harris is at the sculls and Jerome is at the tiller lines.)

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Scene 10

JEROME (to audience) We woke at six the next morning. It was as lovely a morning as one could desire. I looked over to the shore of Magna Carta Island and I could almost fancy that the centuries between us and that ever-to-be-famous June morning of 1215 had been drawn aside, and I was able to witness King John sign the document wherein the great cornerstone in Englands temple of liberty had been firmly laid. (Lights up full)

HARRIS We should have scrambled eggs for breakfast. (to audience) I am famouse for my scrambled eggs. (During the following George and Harris will set up a picnic cloth center stage with 3 small plates of cold beef and 3 small forks and a prop knife that has a dull edge and no point and is rigged to break.)

GEORGE (to audience) All I know is that six eggs had gone into the frying-pan, and all that came out was a teaspoonful of burnt and unappetizing looking mess.

JEROME (to audience) The scrambled eggs were not, however, the greatest culinary disaster of the day. That was yet to come. We got back on the river and sculled for several hours and then stopped a little below Monkey Island, where we drew up for lunch, and tackled the cold beef. (They are all sitting, eating roast beef with unhappy expressions on their faces. Eventually Harris talks.)

HARRIS George, I can't believe you forgot the mustard.

GEORGE I didn't forget the mustard. You chaps forgot the mustard. I don't even like mustard.

HARRIS Still, it was your job to get the mustard. The fact remains that you forgot the mustard.

GEORGE You forgot the mustard.

JEROME We all forgot the mustard.

HARRIS Still, I blame George. (pause)

GEORGE Ohhhhh, I could kill for mustard.

HARRIS I thought you said you didn't like mustard.

GEORGE Normally I don't. But I want it now. I don't think that I have ever in all my life wanted mustard as badly as I want it now.

JEROME Do you remember when we were young and mustard was plentiful? Whatever happened to the good old days.

HARRIS I would give worlds for mustard.

GEORGE Worlds? Thats a bit much. I dare-say you would try to back out of that bargain after you had got the mustard. One makes these extravagant offers in moments of excitement, but...

HARRIS I WOULD GIVE WORLDS FOR MUSTARD.

GEORGE So you would. (pause)

HARRIS I can't believe George forgot the mustard.

JEROME (to audience) The lack of mustard, however, was still not the greatest culinary disaster of the day. That was yet to come.

GEORGE (gets up and starts rummaging through a food hamper) Oh, I know what will cheer us up. I have just the thing. Where are you, then. I know I saw you this morning......Ahhh- a tin of pine-apple.

JEROME (to audience) The tin of pine-apple turned out to be the greatest culinary disaster of the day, if not of all time.

HARRIS (Taking the tin as George starts looking for the opener in the food hampers- he will not actually take anything out of them.) Ahh, Pine-apple. Tinned pine-apple is so much better than fresh.

JEROME It's the juice, you know. That's what makes tinned pine-apple so refreshing.

HARRIS Also, I find carving a fresh pine-apple to be rather dangerous.

JEROME Yes, one might injure oneself.

GEORGE Where is the thing. (looking through the trunk- flinging three blankets and bringing the stew pot, wooden spoon, kettle and stove out.)

HARRIS What thing.

GEORGE The thing to open tins with.

HARRIS You mean the tin opener.

GEORGE Yes, the tin opener thing. It isn't here.

HARRIS George, I'm sure it will turn up.

GEORGE Well I can't find it anywhere.

JEROME Have you looked?

GEORGE What do you think I am doing now.

JEROME Making an awful mess of it, I should think.

HARRIS Don't worry George, we have a knife. That should do the trick.

JEROME Now what you want to do is quickly plunge the knife in. Just quickly plunge the knife in. Ready. One. Two

GEORGE Wait! You'll stab him in the ear-hole. What you want is a sawing motion. You want a sawing motion.

JEROME No you want a plunging motion. You want to plunge.

GEORGE A sawing motion is what you want.

HARRIS I think I prefer the plunging. Here we go. OneTwo...Three (Harris plunges)

HARRIS Blast!

GEORGE What happened?

HARRIS The knife broke.

GEORGE And the tin?

HARRIS The tin is bloody unscratched.

GEORGE I told you that you wanted a sawing motion.

HARRIS I'll get a rock. (He goes off down right)

JEROME I'll find a stick. (He goes off up left.)

GEORGE (to audience) We beat it with a rock. We beat it with a stick. We beat it out flat; we beat it back round; we battered it into every form known to geometry, but we could not make a hole in it. And then we got MAD.

JEROME (Jerome and Harris enter with the rock and stick) George, you hold the tin and Harris you hold the sharp end of the stone against the top of it, and I'll smash it with the stick. Ready. One. Two. Three. (They freeze)

JEROME (to audience) Harris got off with merely a flesh wound. It was Georges straw hat that saved his life that day. What happened next, exactly, is a matter of some debate.

HARRIS (to audience) It was George's fault.

GEORGE (to audience) It was Harris's fault.

JEROME (to audience) It was nobody's fault.

GEORGE (to audience) When J hit the rock with the stick, the pine-apple tin flew up into the air and came down on top of my straw hat.

HARRIS (to audience) The pine-apple tin then changed direction

JEROME (to audience) - in mid air mind you-

HARRIS (to audience) turned right and hit me on the forehead.

GEORGE (to audience) That was one magic pine-apple tin.

JEROME (to audience) And while they were dressing their wounds I took the tin off myself, and hammered at it with the stick till I was worn out and sick at heart.

HARRIS (to audience) Whereupon I took it in hand and flung it far into the middle of the river

JEROME (to audience) and as it sank we hurled our curses at it!

GEORGE (to audience) And we got into the boat and rowed away from the spot, and never paused till we reached Maidenhead.

(Sound- music. Lights- dim to back lighting. The picnic setting is struck and logs are brought on and arranged to suggest a campfire with a stew pot on it. Music- fades out. Lights- up full.)

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Scene 13

(During the following George and Harris will put away the stew pot and arrange blankets around the fire. Jerome will strike the kettle and stove.)

JEROME (to audience) Poor Montmorency. He did a constitutional three times round the island at the rate of thirty-five miles an hour, stopping every now and then to bury his nose in a bit of cool mud. The Irish stew was surprisingly good, with a taste like nothing else on earth.

HARRIS (to audience) The peas and potatoes might have been a bit softer.

GEORGE Well, we all have good teeth, so that doesn't matter much. (to audience) The gravy was a poem.

HARRIS (to audience) A little too rich, perhaps, for a weak stomach.

GEORGE (to audience) But nutritious. (Lights- Cross- fade to night. Sound- crickets chirping. They settle down on the blankets.)

GEORGE Why can't we always be like this away from the world. Away from its sin and temptation, leading sober, peaceful lives.

JEROME It's the sort of thing I have often longed for myself. We should go away, the four of us, to some handy, well-fitted desert island, and live there in the woods.

HARRIS The danger about desert islands is that they are so damp.

GEORGE No, not if properly drained.

HARRIS (sitting up) Speaking of drains, that reminds me of a funny little song, I know.

(singing)

On a tree by a river a little tom-tit

Sang "Willow, titwillow, titwillow"

And I said to him, "Dicky-bird, why do you sit

Singing 'Willow, titwillow, titwillow'"

"Is it weakness of intellect, birdie?" I cried

"Or a rather tough worm in your little inside"

With a shake of his poor little head, he replied

"Oh, willow, titwillow, titwillow!"

He slapped at his chest, as he sat on that bough

Singing "Willow, titwillow, titwillow"

And a cold perspiration bespangled his brow

Oh, willow, titwillow, titwillow

He sobbed and he sighed, and a gurgle he gave

Then he plunged himself into the billowy wave

And an echo arose from the suicide's grave

"Oh, willow, titwillow, titwillow"

Now I feel just as sure as I'm sure that my name

Isn't Willow, titwillow, titwillow

That 'twas blighted affection that made him exclaim

"Oh, willow, titwillow, titwillow"

And if you remain callous and obdurate, I

Shall perish as he did, and you will know why

Though I probably shall not exclaim as I die

"Oh, willow, titwillow, titwillow"

JEROME Harris?

HARRIS Yes J?

JEROME What does that song have to do with drains?

HARRIS I'm not quite sure. (Lights- dim to backlighting. The only things we hear are the crickets. Sound- crickets fade out. Sound- Music. Lights up full. During the following, they will strike the hampers and blankets back to the boat and strike the firewood to offstage right.)

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Scene 18

(Jerome comes downstage and talks to the audience while George and Harris get in the boat and put on blankets)

JEROME (to audience) We left Streatley early the next morning, and spent the next few days wending our way up the river to Oxford. We spent two very pleasant days at Oxford. Then, on the third day the weather changed. (Sound- thunder followed by rain. Lights dim to just the boat and Jerome crosses to it. George and Harris will scull and Jerome will take the tiller lines.)

JEROME (to audience) On the first day of the rain during our trip back, we pretended that we enjoyed it.

GEORGE I rather like the rain.

HARRIS Well its nice to see the river under all its different aspects.

JEROME We can't expect to have it all sunshine. Especially in climate like England's.

GEORGE Yes, nature is beautiful, even in her tears.

JEROME (to audience) On the second day of the rain, we were not quite so enthusiastic.

HARRIS I knew a fellow, once, who came up the river two years ago in weather like this. It gave him rheumatic fever. Nothing was able to save him. He died in great agony ten days afterwards. He was quite young. And engaged to be married. It is one of the saddest things I have ever known. And another friend of mine, who had been in the Volunteers slept out under a canvas one wet night down at Aldershot. He woke up in the morning a cripple for life. I will introduce you both to the man when we get back to town. It will make your hearts bleed to see him.

GEORGE If we ever do get back to town.

JEROME Come on lads, we have see this through to the bitter end. We only have two days left. We have come out for a fortnights enjoyment on the river, and we will have a fortnights enjoyment on the river if it kills us!

GEORGE That would be an awfully sad thing for our friends and relations.

JEROME It can't be helped. To give in to the weather would be a most disastrous precedent. Especially...

ALL In climate like England's. (Pause. George starts singing rather dolefully. By the end of the song, they are all crying.)

GEORGE

Two lovely black eyes!

Oh! what a surprise!

GEORGE and HARRIS

Only for telling a man he was wrong,

ALL

Two lovely black eyes!

HARRIS its almost a pity weve made up our minds to stick to this boat.

GEORGE If we HADNT made up our minds to contract our certain deaths in this bally old coffin, it might be worth while to mention that theres a train leaves Pangbourne, I know, soon after five, which would just land us in town in comfortable time to have dinner.

JEROME (Lights- slowly brighten. Sound-Rain slowly dies out. Jerome crosses downstage and addresses the audience. All three men take off their macintoshes.) Twenty minutes later, three figures, followed by a shamed-looking dog, might have been seen creeping stealthily from the boat-house towards the railway station. We had deceived the boatman at Pangbourne. We had not had the face to tell him that we were running away from the rain. We had left the boat, and all it contained, in his charge...

HARRIS (speaking to unseen boatman offstage) IF--- If anything unforeseen should happen, preventing our return, we will write to you.

JEROME (to audience) We reached Paddington at seven, and as we were making our way to my favorite restaurant, I began to muse on our trip, and what it all had meant. And I remembered something that...

GEORGE and HARRIS Not now, J.

HARRIS Lets just have a good dinner, shall we, and leave the moralizing to others.

GEORGE Yes, old boy, now is not the time.

JEROME Really George, because it was something you had said.

GEORGE Was it? What did I say.

JEROME You remember when we were planning our trip and I asked What should we take? What could we do with?

GEORGE Oh yes, and I said We must not think of the things we could do with, only the things we can not do without.

JEROME Yes, and I told them (the audience) that you could be really quite sensible at times.

GEORGE That was very nice of you- thank you.

JEROME Not at all. (All three men will talk to the audience now) But it is true of life as well, you know. I mean, how many people load up their boat with a store of foolish things. With fine clothes and big houses.

GEORGE True, they load it up with expensive entertainments that nobody enjoys.

HARRIS With formalities and fashions.

JEROME It is lumber all lumber!

GEORGE Throw it overboard, thats what I say. Throw it overboard. Let your boat be packed with only what you need.

JEROME A comfortable home and simple pleasures.

HARRIS Enough to eat and enough to wear.

GEORGE One or two good friends.

HARRIS A tin opener

ALL A tin opener! (George barks)

JEROME You could own dog.

HARRIS Or he could own you.

GEORGE You could learn to play the banjo. (strums banjo)

JEROME and HARRIS You could try. (They are laughing)

HARRIS You could have a good dinner.

JEROME Right then, dinner it is. (they exit down the aisle and into the house)

HARRIS Well, we have had a pleasant trip, and my hearty thanks for it to old Father Thames but I think we did well to chuck it when we did. Heres to Three Men well out of a Boat! (George barks).

ALL To say nothing of the dog.

JEROME That reminds me of a funny story. One time, when I was on a bicycle tour in Germany...

HARRIS and GEORGE Not now, J.

(Sound- Music. Lights- fade to black.)

.