Whatever he lifted he let fall; whatever he touched he upset; whatever he came near—­that was not a fixture—­he knocked over; if it was a fixture, it knocked him over.  This was not carelessness:  it seemed to be a natural gift.  Never in his life, I am convinced, had he carried a bucketful of anything anywhere without tumbling over it before he got there.  One of his duties was to water the flowers on the roof.  Fortunately—­for the flowers—­Nature, that summer, stood drinks with a lavishness sufficient to satisfy the most confirmed vegetable toper:  otherwise every plant on our boat would have died from drought.  Never one drop of water did they receive from him.  He was for ever taking them water, but he never arrived there with it.  As a rule he upset the pail before he got it on to the boat at all, and this was the best thing that could happen, because then the water simply went back into the river, and did no harm to any one.  Sometimes, however, he would succeed in landing it, and then the chances were he would spill it over the deck or into the passage.  Now and again, he would get half-way up the ladder before the accident occurred.  Twice he nearly reached the top; and once he actually did gain the roof.  What happened there on that memorable occasion will never be known.  The boy himself, when picked up, could explain nothing.  It is supposed that he lost his head with the pride of the achievement, and essayed feats that neither his previous training nor his natural abilities justified him in attempting.  However that may be, the fact remains that the main body of the water came down the kitchen chimney; and that the boy and the empty pail arrived together on deck before they knew they had started.

When he could find nothing else to damage, he would go out of his way to upset himself.  He could not be sure of stepping from his own punt on to the boat with safety.  As often as not, he would catch his foot in the chain or the punt-pole, and arrive on his chest.

Amenda used to condole with him.  “Your mother ought to be ashamed of herself,” I heard her telling him one morning; “she could never have taught you to walk.  What you want is a go-cart.”

He was a willing lad, but his stupidity was super-natural.  A comet appeared in the sky that year, and everybody was talking about it.  One day he said to me:—­

“There’s a comet coming, ain’t there, sir?” He talked about it as though it were a circus.

“Coming!” I answered, “it’s come.  Haven’t you seen it?”

“No, sir.”

“Oh, well, you have a look for it to-night.  It’s worth seeing.”

“Yees, sir, I should like to see it.  It’s got a tail, ain’t it, sir?”

“Yes, a very fine tail.”

“Yees, sir, they said it ’ad a tail.  Where do you go to see it, sir?”

“Go!  You don’t want to go anywhere.  You’ll see it in your own garden at ten o’clock.”