Then George got around at the back of Harris and saw it.  “Why, here it is all the time,” he exclaimed indignantly.

“Where?” cried Harris, spinning round.

“Stand still, can’t you!” roared George, flying after him.

And they got it off, and packed it in the teapot.

Montmorency was in it all, of course.  Montmorency’s ambition in life is to get in the way and be sworn at.  If he can squirm in anywhere where he particularly is not wanted, and be a perfect nuisance, and make people mad, and have things thrown at his head, then he feels his day has not been wasted.

[Illustration:  “AIN’T YOU GOING TO PUT THE BOOTS IN?”]

He came and sat down on things, just when they were wanted to be packed; and he labored under the fixed belief that, whenever Harris or George reached out a hand for anything, it was his cold, damp nose that they wanted.  He put his leg into the jam, and he worried the teaspoons, and he pretended that the lemons were rats, and got into the hamper and killed three of them before Harris could land him with the frying-pan.

Harris said I encouraged him.  I didn’t encourage him.  A dog like that doesn’t want any encouragement.  It’s the natural, original sin that is born in him that makes him do things like that.

The packing was done at 12:50; and Harris sat on the big hamper, and said he hoped nothing would be found broken.  George said that if anything was broken it was broken, which reflection seemed to comfort him.  He also said he was ready for bed.  We were all ready for bed.

[Illustration]

ON COMIC SONGS

By JEROME K. JEROME

Harris has a fixed idea that he can sing a comic song; the fixed idea, on the contrary, among those of Harris’s friends who have heard him try, is that he can’t, and never will be able to, and that he ought not to be allowed to try.

When Harris is at a party and is asked to sing, he replies:  “Well, I can only sing a comic song, you know”; and he says it in a tone that implies that his singing of that, however, is a thing that you ought to hear once, and then die.

“Oh, that is nice,” says the hostess.  “Do sing one, Mr. Harris,” and Harris gets up and makes for the piano, with the beaming cheeriness of a generous-minded man who is just about to give somebody something.

“Now, silence, please, everybody,” says the hostess, turning round; “Mr. Harris is going to sing a comic song!”

“Oh, how jolly!” they murmur; and they hurry in from the conservatory, and come up from the stairs, and go and fetch each other from all over the house, and crowd into the drawing-room, and sit round, all smirking in anticipation.

Then Harris begins.

Well, you don’t look for much of a voice in a comic song.  You don’t expect correct phrasing or vocalization.  You don’t mind if a man does find out, when in the middle of a note, that he is too high, and comes down with a jerk.  You don’t bother about time.  You don’t mind a man being two bars in front of the accompaniment, and easing up in the middle of a line to argue it out with the pianist, and then starting the verse afresh.  But you do expect the words.