I mentioned these feelings of mine to Harris, and he said he had them
worse than that. He said he not only felt he wanted to kill the man who
caused the board to be put up, but that he should like to slaughter the
whole of his family and all his friends and relations, and then burn down
his house. This seemed to me to be going too far, and I said so to
Harris; but he answered:
"Not a bit of it. Serve `em all jolly well right, and I'd go and sing
comic songs on the ruins."
I was vexed to hear Harris go on in this blood-thirsty strain. We never
ought to allow our instincts of justice to degenerate into mere
vindictiveness. It was a long while before I could get Harris to take a
more Christian view of the subject, but I succeeded at last, and he
promised me that he would spare the friends and relations at all events,
and would not sing comic songs on the ruins.
You have never heard Harris sing a comic song, or you would understand
the service I had rendered to mankind. It is one of Harris's fixed ideas
that he CAN sing a comic song; the fixed idea, on the contrary, among
those of Harris's friends who have heard him try, is that he CAN'T and
never will be able to, and that he ought not to be allowed to try.
When Harris is at a party, and is asked to sing, he replies: "Well, I can
only sing a COMIC song, you know;" and he says it in a tone that implies
that his singing of THAT, however, is a thing that you ought to hear
once, and then die.
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