Three Men in a Boat starts with three friends named Jerome, George, and Harris smoking together in their apartment in London. The men then make the necessary arrangements for the trip and choose to bring a cover for the boat and sleep in it, instead of carrying a tent or living at an inn. The friends sleep too long but ultimately get on a train to Kingston, from which they will start their journey, on the first morning of the trip. Harris narrates an incident about getting lost in the hedge maze at Hampton Court. The men then go through their first lock, which is a canal set off from the river that allows boats to pass through a steep area. Harris then falls into the food hamper while trying to find a bottle of whiskey. and Harris have a lunch break on the riverbank, a man lands up blackmailing them and accuses them of trespassing the area. J. talks about some more local points of interest, and the two men join George in Shepperton. The men then have an enjoyable dinner and sleep in the boat at night. The next morning, they get up early and George narrates a story about forgetting to wind his watch and starting his workday six hours early to J., who then falls in the water and Harris tries to make scrambled eggs but is unsuccessful. The men pass Datchet and remember the time when they were trying to find a place to sleep there on another trip when the inns were full. They all sleep at an inn in Marlow on that night. J. talks about an incident where he and George had gone for rowing and ruined a professional photographer’s pictures by falling over at the same moment. While on the way back from Oxford, it starts raining and the men land up being cold, wet, and wretched. They soon settle abandoning the boat and spend the rest of the trip at an inn.