Jerome K. Jerome

“ She closed the door behind her, and drawing forward a chair, seated herself the other side of the desk, and the two looked long and anxiously at one another.
“They told me I should find you here alone,” said the woman. “It is better, is it not?”
“Yes,” said Tommy, “it is better.”
“Tell me,” said the woman, “are you very much in love with him?”
“Why should I tell you?”
“Because, if not—if you have merely accepted him thinking him a good catch—which he isn't, my dear; hasn't a penny to bless himself with, and never will if he marries you—why, then the matter is soon settled. ”

“ And Tommy understood and appreciated the sound good sense underlying Jane's advice, and the very next day but one, seizing the first opportunity, acted upon it; and all would have gone as contemplated if only Dick Danvers had sat still and listened, as it had been arranged in Tommy's programme that he should.
“But I don't want to go,” said Dick.
“But you ought to want to go. Staying here with us you are doing yourself no good.” ”

“ So Billy was right, after all, thought Tommy to herself, the piano does help.
“It was so incongruous—a piano in Crane Court—I looked to see where the noise came from. I read the name of the paper on the doorpost. 'It will be my last chance,' I said to myself. 'This shall decide it.'”
He came back to her. She had not moved. “I am not afraid to tell you all this. You are so big-hearted, so human; you will understand, you can forgive. It is all past. Loving you tells a man that he has done with evil. Will you not trust me?” ”

“ Clodd had no patience with Peter Hope, and told him so. “Why are there never inkstains on her fingers now? There used to be. Why does she always keep a lemon in her drawer? When did she last have her hair cut? I'll tell you if you care to know—five months ago, the week before he came. She used to have it cut once a fortnight: said it tickled her neck. Why does she jump on people when they call her Tommy and tell them that her name is Jane? It never used to be Jane. Maybe when you're a bit older you'll begin to notice things for yourself.” ”

“ What troubled her most was that he had not been quite frank with Peter, so that Peter had to defend her against herself.
“I attacked you so suddenly,” explained Peter, “you had not time to think. You acted from instinct. A woman seeks to hide her love even from herself.”
“I expect, after all, I am more of a girl than a boy,” feared Tommy: “I seem to have so many womanish failings.”
Peter took himself into quite places and trained himself to face the fact that another would be more to her than he had ever been, and Clodd went about his work like a bear with a sore head ”

“ Tommy held out her hand for the paper and retired with it behind the protection of the big editorial desk that, flanked on one side by a screen and on the other by a formidable revolving bookcase, stretched fortress-like across the narrow room. The stranger remained standing.
“Yes. It's pretty,” criticised the sub-editor. “Worth printing, perhaps, not worth paying for.”
“Not merely a—a nominal sum, sufficient to distinguish it from the work of the amateur?”
Tommy pursed her lips. “Poetry is quite a drug in the market. We can get as much as we want of it for nothing.” ”

“ Every woman is a mother. Tommy felt for the moment that she wanted to take this big boy on her knee and talk to him for his good. He was only an overgrown lad. But so exceedingly overgrown! Tommy had to content herself with holding out her hand. Dick Danvers grasped it tightly.
Clodd was the only one who did not approve of him. “How did you get hold of him?” asked Clodd one afternoon, he and Peter alone in the office.
“He came. He came in the usual way,” explained Peter.
“What do you know about him?”
“Nothing. What is there to know? One doesn't ask for a character with a journalist.” ”

“ You have done so much for me. Will you not finish your work? Will you not trust me? It is no hot passion that can pass away, my love for you. It springs from all that is best in me—from the part of me that is wholesome and joyous and strong, the part of me that belongs to you.”
Releasing her, he turned away.
“The other part of me—the blackguard—it is dead, dear, dead and buried. I did not know I was a blackguard, I thought myself a fine fellow, till one day it came home to me. ”

“ You're not a father.”
“You've done your best,” admitted William Clodd in a tone of patronage that irritated Peter greatly; “but you're a dreamer; you don't know the world. The time is coming when the girl will have to think of a husband.”
“There's no need for her to think of a husband, not for years,” retorted Peter Hope. “And even when she does, is strumming on the piano going to help her?” ”

“ The last 'bus home on a wet night tells you whether a woman is capable of pushing her own way in the world. Tommy's the sort to get left on the kerb.”
“She's the sort,” retorted Peter, “to make a name for herself and to be able to afford a cab. Don't you bully me!” Peter sniffed self-assertiveness from between his thumb and finger.
“Yes, I shall,” Clodd told him, “on this particular point. The poor girl's got no mother.” ”

“ I am useful to you, dad—I do help you?”
There had crept a terror into Tommy's voice. Peter felt the little hands upon his arm trembling.
“Help me? Why, you work like a nigger—like a nigger is supposed to work, but doesn't. No one—whatever we paid him—would do half as much. I don't want to make your head more swollen than it is, young woman, but you have talent; I am not sure it is not genius.” Peter felt the little hands tighten upon his arm.
“I do want this paper to be a success; that is why I strum upon the piano to please Clodd. ”

“ It requires a certain amount of resolution to enter a cheap restaurant accompanied by that umbrella. When I do, the waiters draw my attention to the most expensive dishes and recommend me special brands of their so-called champagne. They seem quite surprised if I only want a chop and a glass of beer. I haven't always got the courage to disappoint them. It is really becoming quite a curse to me. If I use it to stop a 'bus, three or four hansoms dash up and quarrel over me. I can't do anything I want to do. I want to live simply and inexpensively: it will not let me.”
Tommy laughed. ”

“ Why so suspicious of everybody?”
“Because you are just a woolly lamb and want a dog to look after you. Who is he? On a first night he gives away his stall and sneaks into the pit. When you send him to a picture-gallery, he dodges the private view and goes on the first shilling day. If an invitation comes to a public dinner, he asks me to go and eat it for him and tell him what it's all about. That doesn't suggest the frank and honest journalist, does it?”
“It is unusual, it certainly is unusual,” Peter was bound to admit.
“I distrust the man,” said Clodd. “He's not our class. ”

“ I'd put up with that if I could see the good of it.”
“It's going to help me to get a husband, dad. Seems to me an odd way of doing it; but Billy says so, and Billy knows all about everything.”
“I can't understand you, a sensible girl, listening to such nonsense,” said Peter. “It's that which troubles me.”
“Dad, where are your wits?” demanded Tommy. “Isn't Billy acting like a brick? Why, he could go into Fleet Street to half a dozen other papers and make five hundred a year as advertising-agent—you know he could. But he doesn't. He sticks to us. ”

“ A spare half-hour now and then that you never miss does wonders. You've got it in you.” With these encouraging remarks to Tommy, Clodd disappeared.
“Easy for him,” muttered Peter bitterly. “Always does have an appointment outside the moment she begins.”
Tommy appeared to be throwing her very soul into the performance. Passers-by in Crane Court paused, regarded the first-floor windows of the publishing and editorial offices of Good Humour with troubled looks, then hurried on.
“She has—remarkably firm touch!” shouted the doctor into Peter's ear. “Will see you—evening. Someting—say to you.” ”

“ But in the workaday world one never knows the ending till it comes. Had it been otherwise, I doubt I could have found courage to tell you this story of Tommy. It is not all true—at least, I do not suppose so. One drifts unconsciously a little way into dreamland when one sits oneself down to recall the happenings of long ago ”

“ Clodd jammed his hat on his head and flung himself down the stairs. Peter, slipping out a minute later, bought himself an ounce of snuff.
“Fiddle-de-dee!” said Peter as he helped himself to his thirteenth pinch. “Don't believe it. I'll sound her. I shan't say a word—I'll just sound her.”
Peter stood with his back to the fire. Tommy sat at her desk, correcting proofs of a fanciful story: The Man Without a Past.
“I shall miss him,” said Peter; “I know I shall.”
“Miss whom?” demanded Tommy.
“Danvers,” sighed Peter. “It always happens so. You get friendly with a man ”