In the book, Three Men
in a Boat (published in 1889), humorist Jerome K. Jerome tells the story of
a trip he took up the river Thames with his friends George and Harris and a fox
terrier named Montmorency.
All dog
lovers will love (and recognize) Montmorency.
Here is Jerome’s description of life with a dog as he and his friends tried to pack for their river trip.
Enjoy.
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.
To get somebody to stumble over him, and curse him steadily for an hour, is his
highest aim and object; and, when he has succeeded in accomplishing this, his
conceit becomes quite unbearable.
He came and sat down on things, just when
they were wanted to be packed; and he laboured under the fixed belief that,
whenever Harris or George reached out their 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 don’t
want any encouragement. It’s the natural, original sin that is born in him that
makes him do things like that.
Jerome, Jerome K. (2014-03-28). Three Men in a Boat (To Say
Nothing of the Dog): illustrated, with a detailed map and notes (Kindle
Locations 550-558). . Kindle Edition.
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