Chapter 9 Summary

Harris and J. decide that George should start off by doing some work, and they give him the tow line to pull them as he walks alongside the river.

J. remarks on the uncanny ability of towlines to become tangled on their own, no matter how carefully one winds them or handles them. This usually sets fellow boaters into a feud, each blaming the other for tangling the rope. J. tells the story of once finding two men standing on the towpath holding a line between them and looking astonished. They had stepped out to untangle the line and their boat had floated off without them.

J. also writes about the common occurrence of the man towing walking along while talking to another and losing track of what the person steering the boat is doing. Meanwhile, the man in the boat has dropped...