There are four of them - George, Harris, the writer himself and that dog, Montmorency - all participants in a boating expedition on the Thames. The difficulties and vicissitudes heaped upon these innocents develop to epic proportions as they experience the hazards of the great English waterway. Their problems are in no way diminished by the outrageous behaviour of Montmorency, who lays waste to several riverside communities in the course of their journey. Full of wit and wry humour, this novel with its madcap adventures and side-line streams of consciousness goes far in describing what it means to be English (and what it means to be an English fox terrier ).