Mr. Jones

“ Jones picked his way delicately across the platforms till he reached his compartment, into the corner of which he stretched himself luxuriously and prepared to enjoy his book.
Just before the train started a lady entered carrying a baby and—greatly to Mr. Jones's annoyance—took the corner seat opposite him. Being a confirmed bachelor, he had a horror of all babies, but this child in particular struck him with disfavour; seldom, he thought, had he seen such a peevish discontented expression on any human face. ”

“ Jones and his henchman to be projected towards the bungalow side by side—one infinitely slender, the other short and broad.
The two visitors stood still and gazed. To keep up the fiction of his invalidism, Mr. Jones, the gentleman, leaned on the arm of Ricardo, the secretary, the top of whose hat just came up to his governor's shoulder.
“Do you see them?” Heyst whispered into the girl's ear. “Here they are, the envoys of the outer world. Here they are before you—evil intelligence, instinctive savagery, arm in arm. The brute force is at the back. ”

“ He was a little man, growing elderly now, with a round, smooth, fair face, out of which twinkled kindly blue eyes. Mr. Jones got up from his desk at once to divest him of wig and gown, producing at the same time a miniature flaxen wig, which the Serjeant put upon his head.
"So you have come, Charles!" he said, shaking hands with me as he sat down in a large elbow-chair. Mr. Jones went out with his arm full of papers and shut the door upon us. ”

“ I have really a great respect for you, Mr Jones, upon your own account; nay, I have a very high obligation to you for your generosity to my cousin. Indeed, I did not know how very good you had been till lately. Little did I imagine to what dreadful courses the poor man's distress had driven him. Little did I think, when you gave me the ten guineas, that you had given them to a highwayman! O heavens! what goodness have you shown! ”

“ Jones is the hero of the piece, and gives the title to it; for being closely pressed by some bailiffs, he suddenly slips on his Landlady’s Night-gown, and escapes in disguise from his pursuers, by speaking in a feigned female voice to one of them, and knocking the other down by an exertion of his proper and natural prowess. Such is the story which he himself tells, to account for the oddity of his first appearance. Yet the apology is not necessary. Mr. Jones himself is always a greater oddity than his dress. ”

“ Let me beseech you, sir,” added he, “to reflect on the dreadful consequences of driving him to violent and sudden despair. How unfit, alas! is this poor man to die in his present situation.” This suggestion had not the least effect on Mrs Miller. She left the room, crying, “You are too good, Mr Jones, infinitely too good to live in this world.” But it made a deeper impression on Allworthy. “My good child,” said he, “I am equally astonished at the goodness of your heart, and the quickness of your understanding. ”

“ Jones," said Primrose, smiling sadly.
"None like the present man—none like the present man, my dear young lady," answered Mr. Jones, rubbing his fat hands softly together. "A man who likes crudity, and calls it freshness, ain't to be found every day of the week, Miss Mainwaring." ”

“ Jones,' he called to the mate, who was standing forward at the head of the little poop ladder, 'you can go below and get your supper, then relieve me. Tell Punmeamootty to put some cold beef and pickles on the table. Better let him set the ham on too, and tell the fool that it won't bite him. Punmeamootty can make some coffee, Mr. Jones; or perhaps you drink tea?' said he, turning to Helga. 'Well, both, Mr. Jones, both,' he shouted: 'tea and coffee. Make a good meal, sir, and then come and relieve me.'
The mate vanished. Captain Bunting drew back by a step or two to cast a look aloft. ”

“ Jones.
"But, as to this hour of my time that you ask? What is the object?"
"You remember Lloyd who used to do business on the wharf?"
"Yes; what of him? I thought he died in New Orleans a year ago."
"So he did."
"Not worth a dollar!"
"Not worth many dollars, I believe. He was never a very shrewd man, so far as business was concerned, though honourable and kind-hearted. He did not prosper after leaving our city."
"Honourable and kind-hearted!" returned Mr. Jones, with a slight air of contempt. "Such men are as plenty as blackberries. ”

“ La! sir, says I, you have seen it a hundred times. Yes, Mrs Honour, cried he; but who can see anything beautiful in the presence of your lady but herself?—Nay, that's not all neither; but I hope your ladyship won't be offended, for to be sure he meant nothing. One day, as your ladyship was playing on the harpsichord to my master, Mr Jones was sitting in the next room, and methought he looked melancholy. La! says I, Mr Jones, what's the matter? a penny for your thoughts, says I. Why, hussy, says he, starting up from a dream, what can I be thinking of, when that angel your mistress is playing? ”

“ The father is, indeed, most worthy of compassion. Poor man, his countenance is the very picture of horror, and he looks like one rather dead than alive. Oh heavens! what a scene did I behold at my first coming into the room! The good creature was lying behind the bolster, supporting at once both his child and his wife. He had nothing on but a thin waistcoat; for his coat was spread over the bed, to supply the want of blankets.—When he rose up at my entrance, I scarce knew him. As comely a man, Mr Jones, within this fortnight, as you ever beheld; Mr Nightingale hath seen him. ”

“ Jones's face lit up. Death—a hero's death—might claim him, but he would make democracy safe for the world.
"Last of the Hohenzollerns!" he shouted; "then, by Jove, this is going to be the last of him." And with a yell of triumph he hurled the infant out into the night.
From the child in its trajectory came a long ear-splitting shriek, followed by a gentle wailing.
Mr. Jones sat up and blinked his eyes. The professorial gentleman was still in the far corner; the lady was still opposite him; the child was wailing softly.
The lady smiled. "I'm afraid baby has broken your nap. ”

“ But till its arrival he consoled himself with literature and found vicarious enjoyment in the deeds of others. As long as his imagination could grow lean in its search for treasure amid Alaskan snows, he recked not if reality added an inch or two to his circumference. While he could solve, in fancy, problems that had baffled the acutest investigators, what matter if his tie-pin got mislaid?
And then came war to deposit romance and adventure upon our doorsteps. Mr. Jones was agog with excitement. ”

“ Obadiah gave Mr. Jones a sweeping glance which failed to grasp details essential to a clear understanding of a subordinate. “What do you mean, loafing in here at noon?” he demanded most inaccurately, “I pay you to get here at nine o’clock. What does this mean?” The cruel glance of Obadiah’s eye pierced the optic of Mr. Jones as if to plumb the depths of his soul and wrest his innermost secrets forth to be exposed, naked and ashamed, in the pitiless light of publicity.
The mill owner’s efforts to read the stenographer’s mind through the eye were futile. ”

“ And all the parish says Mr Allworthy is so angry with young Mr Jones, that he won't see him. To be sure, one can't help pitying the poor young man, and yet he doth not deserve much pity neither, for demeaning himself with such kind of trumpery. Yet he is so pretty a gentleman, I should be sorry to have him turned out of doors. I dares to swear the wench was as willing as he; for she was always a forward kind of body. And when wenches are so coming, young men are not so much to be blamed neither; for to be sure they do no more than what is natural. ”

“ I pray you sit down, Sir; be calm, the light is ill for any play with cudgel or sword. De la Tour, a bottle of right Burgundy; Mr. Jones and I have business, and he hath travelled far.”
In a trice there was a chicken, a bottle, a set of knives and forks, a white cloth, and a hungry oaf that did eat and swear! One bottle followed another. By the third Mr. Jones embraced me, saying that never had a man been more belied than I; that it was Lord Fellamar, not I, was the villain. ”

“ I parted with this gentleman at Worcester, on his march against the rebels, and it was then I accidentally met with Mr Jones, who rescued me from the hands of a villain. Indeed, he is the worthiest of men. No young gentleman of his age is, I believe, freer from vice, and few have the twentieth part of his virtues; nay, whatever vices he hath had, I am firmly persuaded he hath now taken a resolution to abandon them.” “I hope he hath,” cries Allworthy, “and I hope he will preserve that resolution. ”

“ And both remained exceedingly still until she said calmly:
"I thought you were the very ideal embodiment of personal liberty. And now I find that wretched and petty and ignoble circumstances fetter even such a man as you are. It—it is—is heartbreaking."
"It won't last forever," he said, controlling his voice.
"But the years are going—the best years, Mr. Jones. And your life's work beckons you. And you are equipped for it, and you can not take it!" ”

“ Jones says to him, “Now, Jones, aint you ashamed of yourself? Where on airth do you think you’d go to, if you was to die in that sitiwation?”
Jones, (very drunk) . Well, I don’t know where I should go to; but I shouldn’t go far, without I could go faster than I do now.
As soon as Mr. Jones had finished the paragraph in the paper, Mrs. Jones threw on her shawl, and went over to her neighbours to communicate the news. I will endeavour to give you an idea of Mrs. Jones, by assuming this shawl and cap. ”

“ Jones had naturally violent animal spirits: these being set on float and augmented by the spirit of wine, produced most extravagant effects. He kissed the doctor, and embraced him with the most passionate endearments; swearing that next to Mr Allworthy himself, he loved him of all men living. "Doctor," added he, "you deserve a statue to be erected to you at the public expense, for having preserved a man, who is not only the darling of all good men who know him, but a blessing to society, the glory of his country, and an honour to human nature. ”

“ Farewel, Sophia; farewel, most lovely, most beloved—” Here passion stopped his mouth, and found a vent at his eyes.
And now having taken a resolution to leave the country, he began to debate with himself whither he should go. The world, as Milton phrases it, lay all before him; and Jones, no more than Adam, had any man to whom he might resort for comfort or assistance. All his acquaintance were the acquaintance of Mr Allworthy; and he had no reason to expect any countenance from them, as that gentleman had withdrawn his favour from him. ”

“ And how she has changed your habits, has turned the course of your life, made it flow in the channel she wished, instead of, as heretofore, 'wandering at its own sweet will,' as the gently-winding but useless brook has been converted into a mill-race.
There is Mr. Jones. Before he married, as free and easy a man as ever smoked a meerschaum. Mrs. Jones is considered a pattern woman; but of that you can judge for yourself. ”

“ The caller turned purple. “If you are Mr. Jones, of the Cosmic Club—”
“I am.”
“—there are certain things which Mr. Bertram must explain.”
“Yes; Bertram said that you were coming, but I’d almost given you up. Come in.”
“Into a—a den where free advice is offered? Of all the patent and infernal rascalities, sir, the offer of free advice—”
“There, there,” soothed the younger man. “I know all about the free swindles. This isn’t one of them. It’s just a fad of mine.”
He led the perturbed scholar inside and got him settled in a chair. “Now, go ahead. ”

“ When Allworthy returned to his lodgings, he heard Mr Jones was just arrived before him. He hurried therefore instantly into an empty chamber, whither he ordered Mr Jones to be brought to him alone.
It is impossible to conceive a more tender or moving scene than the meeting between the uncle and nephew (for Mrs Waters, as the reader may well suppose, had at her last visit discovered to him the secret of his birth) . The first agonies of joy which were felt on both sides are indeed beyond my power to describe: I shall not therefore attempt it. ”

“ Yes, to be sure, that he is, and, as your ladyship says, I don't know why I should be ashamed of loving him, though he is my betters. To be sure, gentlefolks are but flesh and blood no more than us servants. Besides, as for Mr Jones, thof Squire Allworthy hath made a gentleman of him, he was not so good as myself by birth: for thof I am a poor body, I am an honest person's child, and my father and mother were married, which is more than some people can say, as high as they hold their heads. ”

“ Professor Gehren bowed.
“And you, Mr. Jones; are you a detective?”
“No; merely a follower of strange trails—by taste.”
“Ah. You have set yourself to a dark one. You wish to know how Telfik Bey”—his eyes narrowed and glinted—“came to his reward. Will you enter, gentlemen?”
“I know this much,” replied Average Jones as, followed by his friends, he passed through the door which their host held open. “With young Craig as an assistant, you prepared, in the loneliest part of the Hackensack Meadows, some kind of poison which, I believe, can be made with safety only in the open air.” ”