eyond what was possible for him to
reach, the string would slip, and down he would slide on to the piano, a
really fine musical effect being produced by the suddenness with which
his head and body struck all the notes at the same time.

And Aunt Maria would say that she would not allow the children to stand
round and hear such language.

At last, Uncle Podger would get the spot fixed again, and put the point
of the nail on it with his left hand, and take the hammer in his right
hand. And, with the first blow, he would smash his thumb, and drop the
hammer, with a yell, on somebody's toes.

Aunt Maria would mildly observe that, next time Uncle Podger was going to
hammer a nail into the wall, she hoped he'd let her know in time, so that
she could make arrangements to go and spend a week with her mother while
it was being done.

"Oh! you women, you make such a fuss over everything," Uncle Podger would
reply, picking himself up. "Why, I _like_ doing a little job of this
sort."

[Picture: Uncle Podger admiring his work]

And then he would have another try, and, at the second blow, the nail
would go clean through the plaster, and half the hammer after it, and
Uncle Podger be precipitated against the wall with force nearly
sufficient to flatten his nose.

Then we had to find the rule and the string again, and a new hole was
made; and, about midnight, the picture would be up--very crooked and
insecure, the wall for yards round looking as if it had been smoothed
down with a rake, and everybody dead beat and wretched--except Uncle
Podger.

"There you are," he would say, stepping heavily off the chair on to the
charwoman's corns, and surveying the mess he had made with evident pride.
"Why, some people would have had a man in to do a little thing like
that!"

Harris will be just that sort of man when he grows up, I know, and I told
him so. I said I could not permit him to take so much labour upon
himself. I said:

"No; _you_ get the paper, and the pencil, and the catalogue, and George
write down, and I'll do the work."

The first list we made out had to be discarded. It was clear that the
upper reaches of the Thames would not allow of the navigation of a boat
sufficiently large to take the things we had set down as indispensable;
so we tore the list up, and looked at one another!

George said:

"You know we are on a wrong track altogether. We must not think of the
things we could do with, but