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.
"Oh, that _is_ nice," says the hostess.

"Do sing one, Mr.Harris;" and Harris gets up, and makes for the piano, with the beaming cheeriness of a generous-minded man who is just about to give somebody something.
"Now, silence, please, everybody" says the hostess, turning round; "Mr.
Harris is going to sing a comic song!" "Oh, how jolly!" they murmur; and they hurry in from the conservatory, and come up from the stairs, and go and fetch each other from all over the house, and crowd into the drawing-room, and sit round, all smirking in anticipation.
Then Harris begins.
Well, you don't look for much of a voice in a comic song.

You don't expect correct phrasing or vocalization.

You don't mind if a man does find out, when in the middle of a note, that he is too high, and comes down with a jerk.