CBSE Class 9 Answered

The men approach Reading in Chapter 16. J. mentioned that the now polluted and crowded Reading was once a popular destination for Londoners to escape the plague. They got a respite from rowing when an acquaintance with a steam-launcher helped them by towing their boat for miles. They saw the corpse of a woman floating in the water as they reached Goring. They took her to the coroner and found out that she had killed herself because she begot a child out of wedlock and her family abandoned her.

In Chapter 17, the men tried doing their laundry by washing their clothes in the river but they ended up making them even dirtier than before. They readily pay a washerwoman who charged three times the normal rate to wash their clothes since they were so dirty. Later, J. emphasized on the importance of lying about one’s fishing prowess. George and J. go to a pub in Wallingford. Three patrons tried to take credit for a large trout hanging on the wall. Each had his own story and an estimation of its weight. Their lie was exposed when George grabbed on to the trout to stop himself from tripping and ended up displacing it. It fell on the ground and shattered into pieces. It is then revealed that the fish was made of plaster of Paris.

Chapter 18 starts with J.’s discussion of the Thames without “its flower-decked locks”. He narrated another anecdote involving him and George in Hampton Court where a photographer took pictures of a steam-launch. He called out to the duo to stay away from the frame. In an attempt to keep their boat out of the frame, both fell with their feet up in the air. Their feet took up nine-tenths of the image and the annoyed owner of the steam-launcher refused to foot the bill.

In the 19th Chapter, the trio went to Oxford. Montmorency also regaled himself by fighting with the other stray dogs. J. explained the logic behind why some people who vacation on the Thames start from Oxford and move down to London. It helped their boats to move along with the current. He said that the boats in Oxford are too bad to be rented hence it is important to bring one’s own boat. He recounted when he had once mistaken an Oxford boat for an ancient artifact. The incessant rains ruined their journey back from Oxford. They pass their time by playing penny nap and listening to George playing the banjo. Though he was ridiculed for his banjo-playing skills in a previous chapter, George rendered a mournful tune of “Two lovely black eyes”. This caused the other two to be more depressed. They aborted their trip and retired into an inn in Pangbourne where they regaled the guests with their adventures and misadventures from the trip. In the end, they raised a toast their decision to abandon the trip. Montmorency barked in order to concede with the three.