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If, like me, you can’t pole a punt its length without running into a mud-bank or afoul of the bushes, then send for Fin. If he isn’t at Sonning you will hear of him at Cookham or Marlowe or London–but find him wherever he is. He will prolong your life and loosen every button on your waistcoat. Fin is the unexpected, the ever-bubbling, and the ever-joyous; restless as a school-boy ten minutes before recess, quick as a grasshopper and lively as a cricket. He is, besides, brimful and spilling over with a quality of fun that is geyserlike in its spontaneity and intermittent flow. When he laughs, which he does every other minute, the man ploughing across the river, or the boy fishing, or the girl driving the cow, turn their heads and smile. They can’t help it. In this respect he is better than a dozen farmers each with his two blades of grass. Fin plants a whole acre of laughs at once.

On one of my joyous days–they were all joyous days, this one most of all–I was up the backwater, the “Mud Lark” (Fin’s name for the punt) anchored in her element by two poles, one at each end, to keep her steady, when Fin broke through a new aperture and became reminiscent.

I had dotted in the outlines of the old footpath with the meadows beyond, the cotton-wool clouds sailing overhead–only in England do I find these clouds–and was calling to the restless Irishman to sit still or I would send him ashore … wet, when he answered with one of his bubbling outbreaks:

“I don’t wonder yer hot, sor, but I git that fidgety. I been so long doin’ nothin’; two months now, sor, since I been on a box.”

I worked on for a minute without answering. Hanging wall-paper by standing on a box was probably the way they did it in the country, the ceilings being low.

“No work?” I said, aimlessly. As long as he kept still I didn’t care what he talked or laughed about.

“Plinty, sor–an’ summer’s the time to do it. So many strangers comin’ an’ goin’, but they won’t let me at it. I’m laid off for a month yet; that’s why your job come in handy, sor.”

“Row with your Union?” I remarked, listlessly, my mind still intent on watching a sky tint above the foreground trees.

“No–wid the perlice. A little bit of a scrimmage wan night in Trafalgar Square. It was me own fault, sor, for I oughter a-knowed better. It was about three o’clock in the mornin’, sor, and I was outside one o’ them clubs just below Piccadilly, when one o’ them young chaps come out wid three or four others, all b’ilin’ drunk–one was Lord Bentig–jumps into a four-wheeler standin’ by the steps an’ hollers out to the rest of us: ‘A guinea to the man that gits to Trafalgar Square fust; three minutes’ start,’ and off he wint and we after him, leavin’ wan of the others behind wid his watch in his hand.”

I laid down my palette and looked up. Paper-hanging evidently had its lively side.

“Afoot?”

“All four of ’em, sor–lickety-split and hell’s loose. I come near runnin’ over a bobbie as I turned into Pall Mall, but I dodged him and kep’ on and landed second, with the mare doubled up in a heap and the rig a-top of her and one shaft broke. Lord Bentig and the other chaps that was wid him was standin’ waitin’, and when we all fell in a heap he nigh bu’st himself a-laughin’. He went bail for us, of course, and give the three of us ten bob apiece, but I got laid off for three months, and come up here, where me old mother lives and I kin pick up a job.”

“Hanging paper?” I suggested with a smile.

“Yes, or anything else. Ye see, sor, I’m handy carpenterin’, or puttin’ on locks, or the likes o’ that, or paintin’, or paper-hangin’, or mendin’ stoves or tinware. So when they told me a painter chap wanted me, I looked over me perfessions and picked out the wan I tho’t would suit him best. But it’s drivin’ a cab I’m good at; been on the box fourteen year come next Christmas. Ye don’t mind, do ye, sor, my not tellin’ ye before? Lord Bentig’ll tell ye all about me next time ye see him in Lunnon.” This touch was truly Finian. “He’s cousin, ye know, sor, to this young chap what’s here at the inn wid his bride. They wouldn’t know me, sor, nor don’t, but I’ve driv her father many a time. My rank used to be near his house on Bolton Terrace. I had a thing happen there one night that–more water? Yes, sor–and the other brush–the big one? Yes, sor–thank ye, sor. I don’t shake, do I, sor?”