Packing by Jerome K. Jerome
Quick answer: Packing by Jerome K. Jerome, Class 9 Beehive: summary of the Three Men in a Boat chapter, the toothbrush, the butter, Montmorency, humour analysis and exam answers.
A man who prides himself on his packing volunteers to pack for a boating trip, and by the time the trunk is strapped he has forgotten his boots, lost his toothbrush and packed his spectacles. Packing is chapter four of Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat, published in 1889, and seventh in the Class 9 Beehive textbook.
The chapter in brief
J. announces he will pack, expecting to supervise while George and Harris work; they take him literally and lounge while he does everything. He straps the bag and remembers the boots. Unsure whether he packed his toothbrush, an object that haunts him when he travels, he unpacks everything, finds it in a boot, repacks, and packs his spectacles by mistake. He finishes at ten past ten and hands the hampers to the others.
George and Harris break a cup, squash a tomato under the strawberry jam, tread on the butter and pack the pies under heavy things. The butter vanishes, turns up on Harris's back, and ends in the teapot. Montmorency the dog puts his leg in the jam, worries the teaspoons and pretends the lemons are rats. Packing ends at ten to one, and George sets the alarm for half past six.
The characters
Themes and meaning
Exam answers should name overconfidence, the gap between self-image and performance, and small disasters treated with gravity. The sharper observation is that Jerome makes the reader complicit. J. describes his own failures in the tone of a man describing other people's, and the reader sees what he cannot.
The craft of comic prose
Jerome's engine is escalation by repetition: each item packed leads to something unpacked, and each fix creates a new fault. The toothbrush passage inflates a tiny object into an obsession, and the butter sequence shows how to run one prop through five hands. Montmorency arrives whenever the humans have exhausted a joke and the chapter needs fresh chaos.
For the exam
Summary in 100 words: The narrator J. offers to pack for the boating trip, meaning to direct while George and Harris work, but they leave him to do it alone. He forgets his boots, tears the bag apart searching for his toothbrush, which turns up in a boot, and packs his spectacles by mistake. Then George and Harris pack the food hampers, breaking a cup, crushing a tomato, treading on the butter and finally finding it on Harris's back. Montmorency the dog adds to the confusion by sitting in the jam and chasing the lemons. Packing ends at ten to one, and they go to bed.
What writers can take from this
- Name the four episodes in order, boots, toothbrush, spectacles, butter, and the dog's part; sequence questions are common.
- For the humour question, cite one device with one example each: exaggeration, repetition, the unreliable narrator.
- Remember that the chapter is from a novel, Three Men in a Boat, and say so.
- Writers: run a single prop through several hands to build a comic sequence.
- Let a narrator praise himself in the sentence before he fails.
Try it yourself
Write a comic scene in which a narrator who thinks himself an expert at some small domestic task performs it badly in five escalating steps, and give one household animal the job of ruining the sixth.
Questions
Why does the toothbrush trouble the narrator in Packing?
He can never remember whether he has packed it. On this occasion he unpacks the entire bag, searches everywhere, and finds it inside a boot, after which he has to pack everything again.
What did Montmorency do during the packing?
He sat on items about to be packed, put his leg in the jam, disturbed the teaspoons and treated the lemons as rats, killing three before Harris hit him with the frying pan.
What happened to the butter in Packing?
George trod on it, Harris tried to put it in the kettle, then it disappeared until it was found stuck to Harris's back. It was finally packed inside the teapot.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working writers. Updated September 2026.
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