The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Angel and the Author - and Others, by
Jerome K. Jerome

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Title: The Angel and the Author - and Others

Author: Jerome K. Jerome

Release Date: May 16, 2007 [eBook #2368]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ANGEL AND THE AUTHOR - AND
OTHERS***

Transcribed from the 1908 Hurst and Blackett edition by David Price,
email ccx074@pglaf.org

THE ANGEL AND THE AUTHOR
--AND OTHERS

BY
JEROME K. JEROME

Author of
"Paul Kelver," "Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow," "The Passing
of the Third Floor Back," and others.

LONDON:
HURST AND BLACKETT, LIMITED
182, HIGH HOLBORN, W.C.
1908

CHAPTER I

I had a vexing dream one night, not long ago: it was about a fortnight
after Christmas. I dreamt I flew out of the window in my nightshirt. I
went up and up. I was glad that I was going up. "They have been
noticing me," I thought to myself. "If anything, I have been a bit too
good. A little less virtue and I might have lived longer. But one
cannot have everything." The world grew smaller and smaller. The last I
saw of London was the long line of electric lamps bordering the
Embankment; later nothing remained but a faint luminosity buried beneath
darkness. It was at this point of my journey that I heard behind me the
slow, throbbing sound of wings.

I turned my head. It was the Recording Angel. He had a weary look; I
judged him to be tired.

"Yes," he acknowledged, "it is a trying period for me, your Christmas
time."

"I am sure it must be," I returned; "the wonder to me is how you get
through it all. You see at Christmas time," I went on, "all we men and
women become generous, quite suddenly. It is really a delightful
sensation."

"You are to be envied," he agreed.

"It is the first Christmas number that starts me off," I told him; "those
beautiful pictures--the sweet child looking so pretty in her furs, giving
Bovril with her own dear little hands to the shivering street arab; the
good old red-faced squire shovelling out plum pudding to the crowd of
grateful villagers. It makes me yearn to borrow a collect