Three Men in a Boat Boat" is how undated it appears to modern readers – the jokes have been praised as fresh and witty. The three men are based on Jerome himself (the narrator Jerome K. Jerome) and two real-life friends, George Wingrave (who would become a senior manager at Barclays Bank) and Carl Hentschel (the founder of a London printing business, called Harris in the book), with whom Jerome often took boating trips. The dog, Montmorency, is entirely fictional but, "as Jerome admits, developed out of that area of inner consciousness which, in all Englishmen, contains an element of the dog". The trip is
The Story of the Man Who Turned into a Dog someone else dies, retires or is fired. After a watchman’s dog dies following 25 years of service, the Man reluctantly agrees to become the new watchdog. He must live in the doghouse and eat dog food for the pay of 1 dollar a day, even though it drives him and his wife apart. Gradually, the man assumes dog-like behavior and is consistently denied other job opportunities that open up. After moving out to live in an apartment with other women so she can afford rent, his wife announces that she is pregnant and she is afraid her baby will be