Messing about in boats
(Wind in the Willows)
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Many years ago I occasioned to
visit Java, a timber plantations there.?
I was visiting a chap who was doing experiments, dangerous experiments,
in timber planting. He was planting these trees in batches of three very close
together in order to grow plywood.
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It was a very hot evening, I
remember, very hot indeed. There was a reason for it.? It was the heat, you know; it was very
oppressive in the tropics
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We had our sundowners; that means
our umbrellas. Afterwards we had a sort of drink, to feed the beast. And we
were sort of sitting around the dying Embers.??
It was a pity; he was a nice fellow, Embers, Sir Charles Embers. He was
a Bart.? He was about fifty-three, not a
young man at all.
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And he was definitely groggy; I
think he was a goner because, very foolish, he'd gone out in the midday sun;
ropey, topey, making him very dopey, just as the sun was beginning to decline.
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And we were trying to cheer the
poor chap up, the way one does. And he said, "I think I will die happy,
Tom."
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He called me Tom because he was a
bit dim.
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He said, "If I could find
somebody to quote for me from The Wind in the Willows.? It was a favorite book when I was a lad of
four, fifty years ago."
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And just then one of my chaps
stepped forward that I used for filling trees, a nice little fellow.? And his name was Duwong.?
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And Duwong said, "I know
Wind in Willows.? I give you quotation
thereof."
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And I said, "That's terribly
decent of you."
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He said, "It's a song. I
sing."
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So we propped old Embers up. He
was pretty far gone by that time.? His
face was ashen. I sort of accidentally tapped my pipe out on his nose.? And we got him sort of semi-conscious, and my
chap started to sing to him,? "On
the road to Mandalay, where the old flotilla lay."
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And I said, "Look here, old
chap, that isn't Wind in the Willows at all."
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And he said, "Oh yes.? Me sing about Tin the boats."
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Frank Muir 571018a
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