The Project Gutenberg EBook of Jerry, by Jean Webster

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Title: Jerry

Author: Jean Webster

Release Date: January 14, 2007 [EBook #20357]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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JERRY

_BY THE SAME AUTHOR._
UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME
Daddy-Long-Legs.
Just Patty.
Patty and Priscilla.
The Four Pools Mystery.
The Wheat Princess.
Dear Enemy.
Much Ado about Peter.
LONDON: HODDER & STOUGHTON.

JERRY

By
JEAN WEBSTER
Author of "Dear Enemy," etc

HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO

Copyright, 1907, by
THE CENTURY CO.

* * * * *

Copyright, 1906, 1907, by
THE CROWELL PUBLISHING COMPANY.

CHAPTER I

The courtyard of the Hotel du Lac, furnished with half a dozen tables and
chairs, a red and green parrot chained to a perch, and a shady little
arbour covered with vines, is a pleasant enough place for morning coffee,
but decidedly too sunny for afternoon tea. It was close upon four of a
July day, when Gustavo, his inseparable napkin floating from his arm,
emerged from the cool dark doorway of the house and scanned the burning
vista of tables and chairs. He would never, under ordinary circumstances,
have interrupted his siesta for the mere delivery of a letter; but this
particular letter was addressed to the young American man, and young
American men, as every head waiter knows, are an unreasonably impatient
lot. The courtyard was empty, as he might have foreseen, and he was
turning with a patient sigh towards the long arbour that led to the lake,
when the sound of a rustling paper in the summer-house deflected his
course. He approached the doorway and looked inside.

The young American man, in white flannels with a red guide-book
protruding from his pocket, was comfortably stretched in a lounging
chair engaged with a cigarette and a copy of the Paris _Herald_. He
glanced up with a yawn--excusable under the circumstances--but as his eye
f