( from "Three Men in a Boat", by Jerome K. Jerome)
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/308/308-h/308-h.htm
I remember a friend of mine, buying a couple of cheeses at
Liverpool. Splendid cheeses they were, ripe and mellow, and
with a two hundred horse-power scent about them that might have
been warranted to carry three miles, and knock a man over at two
hundred yards. I was in Liverpool at the time, and my
friend said that if I didn’t mind he would get me to take
them back with me to London, as he should not be coming up for a
day or two himself, and he did not think the cheeses ought to be
kept much longer.
“Oh, with pleasure, dear boy,” I replied,
“with pleasure.”
I called for the cheeses, and took them away in a cab.
It was a ramshackle affair, dragged along by a knock-kneed,
broken-winded somnambulist, which his owner, in a moment of
enthusiasm, during conversation, referred to as a horse. I
put the cheeses on the top, and we started off at a shamble that
would have done credit to the swiftest steam-roller ever built,
and all went merry as a funeral bell, until we turned the
corner. There, the wind carried a whiff from the cheeses
full on to our steed. It woke him up, and, with a snort of
terror, he dashed off at three miles an hour. The wind
still blew in his direction, and before we reached the end of the
street he was laying himself out at the rate of nearly four miles
an hour, leaving the cripples and stout old ladies simply
nowhere.
It took two porters as well as the driver to hold him in at
the station; and I do not think they would have done it, even
then, had not one of the men had the presence of mind to put a
handkerchief over his nose, and to light a bit of brown
paper.
I took my ticket, and marched proudly up the platform, with my
cheeses, the people falling back respectfully on either
side. The train was crowded, and I had to get into a
carriage where there were already seven other people. One
crusty old gentleman objected, but I got in, notwithstanding;
and, putting my cheeses upon the rack, squeezed down with a
pleasant smile, and said it was a warm day.
A few moments passed, and then the old gentleman began to
fidget.
“Very close in here,” he said.
“Quite oppressive,” said the man next him.
And then they both began sniffing, and, at the third sniff,
they caught it right on the chest, and rose up without another
word and went out. And then a stout lady got up, and said
it was disgraceful that a respectable married woman should be
harried about in this way, and gathered up a bag and eight
parcels and went. The remaining four passengers sat on for
a while, until a solemn-looking man in the corner, who, from his
dress and general appearance, seemed to belong to the undertaker
class, said it put him in mind of dead baby; and the other three
passengers tried to get out of the door at the same time, and
hurt themselves.
I smiled at the black gentleman, and said I thought we were
going to have the carriage to ourselves; and he laughed
pleasantly, and said that some people made such a fuss over a
little thing. But even he grew strangely depressed after we
had started, and so, when we reached Crewe, I asked him to come
and have a drink. He accepted, and we forced our way into
the buffet, where we yelled, and stamped, and waved our umbrellas
for a quarter of an hour; and then a young lady came, and asked
us if we wanted anything.
“What’s yours?” I said, turning to my
friend.
“I’ll have half-a-crown’s worth of brandy,
neat, if you please, miss,” he responded.
And he went off quietly after he had drunk it and got into
another carriage, which I thought mean.
From Crewe I had the compartment to myself, though the train
was crowded. As we drew up at the different stations, the
people, seeing my empty carriage, would rush for it.
“Here y’ are, Maria; come along, plenty of
room.” “All right, Tom; we’ll get in
here,” they would shout. And they would run along,
carrying heavy bags, and fight round the door to get in
first. And one would open the door and mount the steps, and
stagger back into the arms of the man behind him; and they would
all come and have a sniff, and then droop off and squeeze into
other carriages, or pay the difference and go first.
From Euston, I took the cheeses down to my friend’s
house. When his wife came into the room she smelt round for
an instant. Then she said:
“What is it? Tell me the worst.”
I said:
“It’s cheeses. Tom bought them in Liverpool,
and asked me to bring them up with me.”
And I added that I hoped she understood that it had nothing to
do with me; and she said that she was sure of that, but that she
would speak to Tom about it when he came back.
My friend was detained in Liverpool longer than he expected;
and, three days later, as he hadn’t returned home, his wife
called on me. She said:
“What did Tom say about those cheeses?”
I replied that he had directed they were to be kept in a moist
place, and that nobody was to touch them.
She said:
“Nobody’s likely to touch them. Had he smelt
them?”
I thought he had, and added that he seemed greatly attached to
them.
“You think he would be upset,” she queried,
“if I gave a man a sovereign to take them away and bury
them?”
I answered that I thought he would never smile again.
An idea struck her. She said:
“Do you mind keeping them for him? Let me send
them round to you.”
“Madam,” I replied, “for myself I like the
smell of cheese, and the journey the other day with them from
Liverpool I shall ever look back upon as a happy ending to a
pleasant holiday. But, in this world, we must consider
others. The lady under whose roof I have the honour of
residing is a widow, and, for all I know, possibly an orphan
too. She has a strong, I may say an eloquent, objection to
being what she terms ‘put upon.’ The presence
of your husband’s cheeses in her house she would, I
instinctively feel, regard as a ‘put upon’; and it
shall never be said that I put upon the widow and the
orphan.”
“Very well, then,” said my friend’s wife,
rising, “all I have to say is, that I shall take the
children and go to an hotel until those cheeses are eaten.
I decline to live any longer in the same house with
them.”
She kept her word, leaving the place in charge of the
charwoman, who, when asked if she could stand the smell, replied,
“What smell?” and who, when taken close to the
cheeses and told to sniff hard, said she could detect a faint
odour of melons. It was argued from this that little injury
could result to the woman from the atmosphere, and she was
left.
The hotel bill came to fifteen guineas; and my friend, after
reckoning everything up, found that the cheeses had cost him
eight-and-sixpence a pound. He said he dearly loved a bit
of cheese, but it was beyond his means; so he determined to get
rid of them. He threw them into the canal; but had to fish
them out again, as the bargemen complained. They said it
made them feel quite faint. And, after that, he took them
one dark night and left them in the parish mortuary. But
the coroner discovered them, and made a fearful fuss.
He said it was a plot to deprive him of his living by waking
up the corpses.
My friend got rid of them, at last, by taking them down to a
sea-side town, and burying them on the beach. It gained the
place quite a reputation. Visitors said they had never
noticed before how strong the air was, and weak-chested and
consumptive people used to throng there for years afterwards.
