Three Men on Wheels

By Jerome K. Jerome190014 chapters

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Contents

• First Chapter (opens in a new tab)

  In Harris's smoking-room Harris, George and the narrator agree they need a change, and dodge the question of who will tell Ethelbertha and Clara. The narrator recalls the yacht Rogue hired from Pertwee & Co. and the crew of Captain Goyles, then they pass over the river and Scotland and settle on a bicycle tour through the Black Forest.
• The Subjugation of Ethelbertha (opens in a new tab)

  The narrator tries to win a holiday from Ethelbertha by pleading monotony, only for her to admit she would like a break from him and to plan a house at Folkestone with Clara. Harris reports his wife's price: a bathroom and a new stove. The friends fix a route by way of Hamburg, Berlin, Dresden and Stuttgart, quarrel over who does the work on a tandem, and Harris tells how he lost his wife on a ride. Uncle Podger's packing list closes it.
• The Bicycle Doctor of Folkestone (opens in a new tab)

  The narrator talks Harris out of buying a patent brake, and recalls the lamp that exploded and the saddle he once tried. A friend named Ebbson overhauls his machine and wrecks it, losing the ball bearings and mangling the gearcase, and it goes to a repair shop and is sold through an agent. The narrator ends with a lecture on 'overhaulers' and George's warning.
• The Awakening at Beggarbush (opens in a new tab)

  George sleeps at Harris's house and the children wake the household in a riot well before five. The narrator tells of his own inward watchman, writes three paragraphs and drives golf balls at two sheep, and recalls Uncle Podger's daily rush for the Ealing train. A cab ride across London brings a boot-shop and cap-shop contest, and they board the boat at Fenchurch Street.
• The Universal Educator (opens in a new tab)

  A Scotchman's candid proposal to Jennie opens a chapter on the narrator's early journalism on a paper that mixed instruction with amusement: rabbit farming, a cure for fits in cats and a hair-restorer claim that brought an angry mother. He then complains that word-pictures and guide-books convey little, with a German schoolroom essay on a wood and the Black Forest in the guide-book's words.
• An Aquatic Adventure at Hamburg (opens in a new tab)

  The friends reach Hamburg and go on to Hanover and Berlin, finding a quiet British Sunday there. The narrator compares how English and German schools teach foreign languages, then Harris admires a street-waterer at Hanover and, taking the hose, drenches the crowd. At Berlin they take a droschke whose wall-eyed horse cuts the guide's talk short on Unter den Linden.
• Harris Goes Shopping (opens in a new tab)

  Between Berlin and Dresden George notes German letter-boxes in trees, and the narrator describes the German love of tidiness and the tamed mountain torrent near Dresden. Harris is thrown about on a Dresden tram, and George tells how he asked a shop-girl for a 'kuss' and left his twenty marks behind when he wanted a cushion for his aunt.
• The Regeneration of George (opens in a new tab)

  At Dresden station the friends meet Mr. and Miss Jones of Manchester, English tourists with an alpenstock. At Prague they hear the city's history and a guide who pushes his hair restorer. Harris and the narrator, alarmed at George's love of Pilsener beer, play on him a moonlit practical joke to cure it. The chapter closes at Karlsbad and Nuremberg.
• In the Toils of the German Law (opens in a new tab)

  Between Nuremberg and the Black Forest all three get into trouble: Harris insults an official at Stuttgart and is fined forty marks, the narrator is arrested at Carlsruhe for taking a bicycle, and George is charged for jumping a train. The chapter then lists German police rules against throwing things from windows, walking on grass and pushing a perambulator, and ends with students.
• The Ways of the German Dog (opens in a new tab)

  From Baden the three start cycling in earnest on a ten-day tour of the Black Forest and the Danube valley, and the narrator contrasts planned and actual distances at Titisee and St. Blasien. He describes the cycle-poster rider, German house griffins and dogs, a milk-cart dog fight, and a horse abused by its owners.
• Lost in the Black Forest (opens in a new tab)

  The friends sleep in a Black Forest farmhouse shared with the farm animals, then set off over a mountain and walk in circles around the same village. A carriage driver cuts a horse loose down a hillside, and at Waldshut a bewildered English traveller blames a railway porter for not speaking English.
• The Slave of the Brick (opens in a new tab)

  The friends hunt for the restaurant that sits on every German hilltop, find one hidden near a summit, and watch a man with a brick try to drown a dog and a landlord kick a pig. A farmer with a gun frightens them off his plums. They sleep at Barr and near St. Ottilienberg, and the narrator relates his struggle to pronounce 'kirche'.
• How German Students Amuse Themselves (opens in a new tab)

  At a German university town the friends see how students play while English boys work, with a look at the sword duel called the Mensur and its scars. A Kneipe with songs and the Salamander toast follows, and the story of Mr. X. and Mr. Y., sent home in the wrong houses, ends with their wives swapping husbands.
• Back to Ethelbertha (opens in a new tab)

  On their last evening in the Kaiser Hof garden at Bonn, George considers how easy it would be to rule the obedient Germans, and the narrator weighs their police-led character, schooling and manners as shopkeepers. He imagines the German woman's future, and Harris and George ask what a 'Bummel' is, which the narrator defines before they go to bed.