The
whole town was full of oil. We passed through the church-yard, and it
seemed as if the people had been buried in oil. The High Street stunk of
oil; we wondered how people could live in it. And we walked miles upon
miles out Birmingham way; but it was no use, the country was steeped in
oil.
At the end of that trip we met together at midnight in a lonely field,
under a blasted oak, and took an awful oath (we had been swearing for a
whole week about the thing in an ordinary, middle-class way, but this was
a swell affair) - an awful oath never to take paraffine oil with us in a
boat again-except, of course, in case of sickness.
Therefore, in the present instance, we confined ourselves to methylated
spirit. Even that is bad enough. You get methylated pie and methylated
cake. But methylated spirit is more wholesome when taken into the system
in large quantities than paraffine oil.
For other breakfast things, George suggested eggs and bacon, which were
easy to cook, cold meat, tea, bread and butter, and jam. For lunch, he
said, we could have biscuits, cold meat, bread and butter, and jam - but
NO CHEESE. Cheese, like oil, makes too much of itself. It wants the
whole boat to itself. It goes through the hamper, and gives a cheesy
flavour to everything else there. You can't tell whether you are eating
apple-pie or German sausage, or strawberries and cream.
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