Page:Three men in a boat (to say nothing of the dog) (IA threemeninboatto00jerorich).pdf/231

 "Did what?" exclaimed George and I.

"Why, put me to sit here—darn silly trick! Here, catch hold of the pie."

Rescuing the pie And out of the middle of the earth, as it seemed to us, rose the pie—very much mixed up and damaged; and, after it, scrambled Harris—tumbled, grubby, and wet.

He had been sitting, without knowing it, on the very verge of a small gully, the long grass hiding it from view; and in leaning a little back he had shot over, pie and all.

He said he had never felt so surprised in all his life, as when he first felt himself going, without being able to conjecture in the slightest what had happened. He thought at first that the end of the world had come.

Harris believes to this day that George and I planned it all beforehand. Thus does unjust suspicion follow even the most blameless for, as the poet says, "Who shall escape calumny?"

Who, indeed!