The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Observations of Henry, by Jerome K. Jerome

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Title: The Observations of Henry

Author: Jerome K. Jerome

Release Date: March 7, 2006 [eBook #17943]

Language: English

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

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OBSERVATIONS OF HENRY***

Transcribed from the 1901 J. W. Arrowsmith edition by David Price, email
ccx074@coventry.ac.uk

THE OBSERVATIONS OF HENRY

BY
JEROME K. JEROME

AUTHOR OF
"THREE MEN IN A BOAT," "DIARY OF A PILGRIMAGE," "THREE MEN ON THE
BUMMEL," ETC.

BRISTOL
J. W. ARROWSMITH, QUAY STREET
LONDON
SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT AND COMPANY LIMITED
1901

THE GHOST OF THE MARCHIONESS OF APPLEFORD.

This is the story, among others, of Henry the waiter--or, as he now
prefers to call himself, Henri--told to me in the long dining-room of the
Riffel Alp Hotel, where I once stayed for a melancholy week "between
seasons," sharing the echoing emptiness of the place with two maiden
ladies, who talked all day to one another in frightened whispers. Henry's
construction I have discarded for its amateurishness; his method being
generally to commence a story at the end, and then, working backwards to
the beginning, wind up with the middle. But in all other respects I have
endeavoured to retain his method, which was individual; and this, I
think, is the story as he would have told it to me himself, had he told
it in this order:

My first place--well to be honest, it was a coffee shop in the Mile End
Road--I'm not ashamed of it. We all have our beginnings. Young
"Kipper," as we called him--he had no name of his own, not that he knew
of anyhow, and that seemed to fit him down to the ground--had fixed his
pitch just outside, between our door and the music hall at the corner;
and sometimes, when I might happen to have a bit on, I'd get a paper from
him, and pay him for it, when the governor was not about, with a mug of
coffee, and odds and ends that the other customers had left on their
plates--an arrangement that suited both of us. He was just about as
sharp as they make boys, even in the Mile End Road, which is saying a
goo