Project Gutenberg's Passing of the Third Floor Back, by Jerome K. Jerome

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Passing of the Third Floor Back

Author: Jerome K. Jerome

Posting Date: July 26, 2008 [EBook #865]
Release Date: April 1997

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PASSING OF THE THIRD FLOOR BACK ***

Produced by Ron Burkey, and Amy Thomte

PASSING OF THE THIRD FLOOR BACK

By Jerome K. Jerome

Author of "Paul Kelver," "Three Men in a Boat," etc., etc.

New York

Dodd, Mead & Company

1909

Copyright, 1904, By Jerome K. Jerome

Copyright, 1908, By Dodd, Mead & Company

Published, September, 1908

The neighbourhood of Bloomsbury Square towards four o'clock of a
November afternoon is not so crowded as to secure to the stranger, of
appearance anything out of the common, immunity from observation. Tibb's
boy, screaming at the top of his voice that _she_ was his honey, stopped
suddenly, stepped backwards on to the toes of a voluble young lady
wheeling a perambulator, and remained deaf, apparently, to the somewhat
personal remarks of the voluble young lady. Not until he had reached
the next corner--and then more as a soliloquy than as information to the
street--did Tibb's boy recover sufficient interest in his own affairs to
remark that _he_ was her bee. The voluble young lady herself, following
some half-a-dozen yards behind, forgot her wrongs in contemplation
of the stranger's back. There was this that was peculiar about the
stranger's back: that instead of being flat it presented a decided
curve. "It ain't a 'ump, and it don't look like kervitcher of the
spine," observed the voluble young lady to herself. "Blimy if I don't
believe 'e's taking 'ome 'is washing up his back."

The constable at the corner, trying to seem busy doing nothing, noticed
the stranger's approach with gathering interest. "That's an odd sort of
a walk of yours, young man," thought the constable. "You take care you
don't fall down and tumble over yourself."

"Thought he was a young man," murmured the constable, the stranger
having passed him. "He had a young face right enough."

The daylight was fading. The stranger, finding