George said that the same thing had happened to him a few months before. He told me a story about it…

At that time George had rooms in the house of a lady called Mrs Gippings. One evening his watch stopped at a quarter past eight. He did not realize this then. When he went to bed, he took off his watch, and he did not look at it.

I woke up at six o'clock the next morning, and I found that George was awake, too. We both tried to go to sleep again, but we could not. This was because we did not need to get up early. We could sleep for another two or three hours. But we both felt we would die if we tried to sleep for another five minutes.

'Good heavens!'George cried. 'I have to be at the bank by nine o'clock!'And he threw down the watch and jumped out of bed. He had a cold bath and he dressed. Then he ran and looked at his watch. It had started to go again, and it was twenty to nine.

This happened in the winter, so it was dark in the mornings, anyway. When George woke up, he looked at his watch. It was a quarter past eight.

George took his watch and ran downstairs. The dining-room was dark and silent. There was no fire, no breakfast. George was very angry with Mrs G. He decided to tell her this later, in the evening. Then he caught hold of his coat, his hat and his umbrella, and ran to the front door. lt'was locked! George said that Mrs G. was a lazy old woman. Then he unlocked the door and ran out into the street.

For a few hundred metres he ran as fast as he could. But, suddenly, he noticed that there were not many people about. He also noticed that the shops were not open. It was a very dark and foggy morning. However, it seemed very strange that they had closed the shops because of the fog. He had to go to work, so why should other people stay in bed?

George could see only three people. One of them was a policeman, one was a man who was taking vegetables to the market, and one was a taxi-driver.

George looked at his watch. It was five to nine. For a moment, he stood there without moving. He wondered if he was dreaming. He felt his wrist, and bent down and felt his legs. Then, with his watch in his hand, he went up to the policeman.

So George went back.

At first, he thought he would go to bed again. However, he did not like the idea of having to get up again later. So he decided to go to sleep in the armchair.

He felt very lonely and miserable. He met policemen who looked at him strangely. They followed him about. He began to feel that he really had done something wrong. He started to hide in dark corners whenever he saw a policeman.

'Do you know where you live?'the policeman asked.

Just then George heard a clock…one…two…three. 'But that's only three times!'George said, when it had finished.

George thought for a minute, and then he told the policeman the address.

'Well, I think you should go back there quietly,'the policeman continued. 'And take your watch with you!'

'Well, how many times do you want?'the policeman replied.

'What's the time?'the policeman repeated. 'Well, listen. '

'Why, nine, of course,'George said, and he held out his watch to the policeman.

But he could not get to sleep. He tried to read, but that was no good either. Finally, he put on his coat again, and he went out for a walk.

'What time is it, please?'he asked the policeman.

Of course, then the policemen wanted to know what he was doing. George said,'Nothing. I'm just going for a walk. 'But they did not believe him. In the end, two policemen went back to the house with him. They wanted to know if he really did live there. They watched him go in with his key. Then they stood on the opposite side of the road, and they watched the house.

When he got in, he thought,'I'll light the fire, and then I'll make some breakfast. 'But he made a lot of noise, and he was afraid that Mrs Gippings would wake up. She would hear the noise and think that he was a burglar. Then she would open the window and shout,'Help! Police!'the two policemen would come and arrest George, and take him away. So he stopped trying to prepare breakfast, and he put on his coat. Then he sat in the armchair and he waited for Mrs Gippings. She came down at half past seven.

George said that, since then, he had never got up too early again…

When George had finished his story, we decided to wake up Harris. It was hard work. In the end we had to use quite a sharp piece of metal. Harris sat up suddenly then. Montmorency had been asleep on Harris's chest, and he went flying across the boat.

After that, we pulled up the cover and we put our heads over the side of the boat. We looked down at the water. The night before, we had decided to get up early. We would throw off the cover and we would jump into the water, with shouts of happiness. Then we would enjoy a long swim.

But now that morning had come, it did not seem to be a very good idea. The water looked wet and cold. The wind felt cold, too.

'Well, who's going to go in for a swim first?'Harris said finally.

I did not want to give up the idea absolutely. I decided to go down to the edge of the river, and then splash some water over myself. So I went out on to the river bank, and I began to move carefully along the branch of a tree which was over the water.

It was very cold, and I thought I would not splash water over myself, after all. I would go back into the boat and dress. I turned -- and just then the stupid branch broke. The next minute, I was in the middle of the river, with half a litre of the Thames inside me.

Nobody hurried to be the first one. George put his head back inside the boat. Montmorency barked with horror at the idea. Harris said it would he difficult to climb back into the boat again from the water. Then he went back into the boat to look for his trousers.

'Aren't you going to get it out?'George cried, between his shouts of laughter.

When I got back to the boat, I was very cold. I wanted to put on my shirt as quickly as possible. By accident, I dropped it into the water. This made me very angry, but George started to laugh. 'I can't see anything to laugh at,'I told George. He just went on laughing! In fact, I never saw a man laugh so much. In the end, I became really angry with him. I told him what I thought about him. He laughed more loudly. And then, just as I was getting the shirt back out of the water, I noticed that it was not my shirt. So I began to laugh, too. I looked at George, who was laughing so much. Then I looked at the wet shirt -- and I laughed more and more. Because I was laughing so much, I dropped the shirt in the water again.

But they did not want to.

'Is it all right?'George called out.

'Lovely,'I replied. 'Why don't you come in?'

'Good heavens! Old J. 's gone in!'Harris said.

At first I could not answer him, because I was laughing so much. In the end, I managed to say,'It isn't my shirt. It's yours!'

Harris had some trouble when he tried to break the eggs. He had trouble stopping them from getting onto his trousers. And he had more trouble trying to stop them from going up his arms. Finally, he managed to get about six of the eggs into the pan. Then he sat down and started to cook them.

It seemed to be very difficult work. Whenever he went near the pan, he burnt himself. Then he dropped everything, and danced about, and waved his hands, and shouted. In fact, every time George and I looked at him, he was doing this. At first we thought it was necessary to do this to cook the eggs.

I have never seen a man's face change so quickly. I tried to make him see that it was very funny, but he did not agree with me.

After that, it was time for breakfast, and we decided to have eggs. Harris said he would cook them. He said he was very good at doing eggs. People who had eaten his eggs never wanted any other food afterwards. 'If they can't get my eggs, they won't eat,'he said,'and they die. '

So we gave him the pan, and all the eggs which had not broken. 'Go on, then,'we said. 'Begin!'

Once Montmorency went and looked into the pan, but he burnt himself. Then he started dancing and shouting, too. It was all very exciting, and George and I were quite sorry when it finished.