* exercise null handling fail on those subcollections.
   */
  public abstract static class NullsBefore implements Comparator<@Nullable String>, Serializable {
    /*
     * We don't serialize this class in GWT, so we don't care about whether GWT will serialize this
     * field.
     */
    @GwtTransient private final String justAfterNull;

    protected NullsBefore(String justAfterNull) {
      if (justAfterNull == null) {

      Class<?> cls;
      try {
        cls = classInfo.load();
      } catch (NoClassDefFoundError e) {
        // In case there were linking problems, this is probably not a class we care to test anyway.
        logger.log(Level.SEVERE, "Cannot load class " + classInfo + ", skipping...", e);
        continue;
      }
      if (!cls.isInterface()) {
        classes.add(cls);
      }
    }

    this.allowsNullKeys = allowsNullKeys;
    this.allowsNullValues = allowsNullValues;
    this.supportsIteratorRemove = supportsIteratorRemove;
  }

  /**
   * Used by tests that require a map, but don't care whether it's populated or not.
   *
   * @return a new map instance.
   */
  protected Map<K, V> makeEitherMap() {
    try {
      return makePopulatedMap();
    } catch (UnsupportedOperationException e) {

    assertEquals(distinct, getMultiset().elementSet().size());
  }

  @CollectionFeature.Require(absent = SUPPORTS_REMOVE)
  public void testRemove_occurrences_unsupported_absent() {
    // notice: we don't care whether it succeeds, or fails with UOE
    try {
      assertEquals(
          "multiset.remove(absent, 2) didn't return 0 or throw an exception",
          0,
          getMultiset().remove(e3(), 2));

  }

  public void testCheckElementIndex_badSize() {
    try {
      Preconditions.checkElementIndex(1, -1);
      fail();
    } catch (IllegalArgumentException expected) {
      // don't care what the message text is, as this is an invalid usage of
      // the Preconditions class, unlike all the other exceptions it throws
    }
  }

  public void testCheckElementIndex_negative() {
    try {