Montmorency , the dog has been treated as the fourth member of the team bound for the boat trip . How does the writer describe him and his antics from the time he first arrived to live with him .

Montmorency provides opportunities for slapstick humor that Jerome would not have had with an all-human cast of characters. More importantly, he serves as a foil to George, J., and Harris. While the men are easily discouraged and pathologically lazy, Montmorency is always in a lively mood, managing to obtain his own food and defend himself with confidence and competence (at least most of the time). Often, Jerome underscores the men's foolish behavior by contrasting them unfavorably with Montmorency. Especially considering that Jerome did not actually have a dog, one can see how Montmorency as a literary construction allows him to better characterize the human foibles that he criticizes both explicitly and implicitly.