Then he'd get up, and find that he had been sitting on it, and would call
out:

"Oh, you can give it up! I've found it myself now. Might just as well
ask the cat to find anything as expect you people to find it."

And, when half an hour had been spent in tying up his finger, and a new
glass had been got, and the tools, and the ladder, and the chair, and the
candle had been brought, he would have another go, the whole family,
including the girl and the charwoman, standing round in a semi-circle,
ready to help. Two people would have to hold the chair, and a third
would help him up on it, and hold him there, and a fourth would hand him
a nail, and a fifth would pass him up the hammer, and he would take hold
of the nail, and drop it.

"There!" he would say, in an injured tone, "now the nail's gone."

And we would all have to go down on our knees and grovel for it, while he
would stand on the chair, and grunt, and want to know if he was to be
kept there all the evening.

The nail would be found at last, but by that time he would have lost the
hammer.

"Where's the hammer? What did I do with the hammer? Great heavens!
Seven of you, gaping round there, and you don't know what I did with the
hammer!"

We would find the hammer for him, and then he would have lost sight of