Get a houseboat and be sure that it is water-tight and free from rats and other unpleasant visitors.
Take care that your servants have no objection to roughing it, and can turn their hands to anything usually supplied in town by the stores.
Accustom yourself to food in tins and bottles, and learn to love insects with or without wings.
Acclimatise yourself to mists and fogs and rainy days, and grow accustomed to reading papers four days old and the advertisements of out-of-date railway guides.
Try to love the pleasures of a regatta. Do not quarrel with the riparian owners or the possessors of other houseboats. Enjoy the pleasantries of masked musicians, and take an intelligent interest in the racing. Illuminate freely, and do your best to avoid a fire or an explosion. And if you have fireworks, don't sort them out with the light of a blazing squib or some illuminant of a similar character.
Be good, and mild and long-suffering. Rest satisfied with indifferently cooked food, damp sheets, and wearisome companions. And make the best of storms of rain and hurricanes of wind. In fact, bear everything, and grin when you can't laugh.
Another and a better way.--Put up at a comfortable riparian hotel, and when the weather is against you, run up to town and give a wide berth to the Thames and its miseries.
