The Project Gutenberg eBook, Tommy and Co., by Jerome K. Jerome

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Title: Tommy and Co.

Author: Jerome K. Jerome

Release Date: July 10, 2007 [eBook #2356]

Language: English

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

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOMMY AND CO.***

Transcribed from the 1904 Hutchinson and Co. edition by David Price,
email ccx074@pglaf.org

TOMMY AND CO.

BY
JEROME K. JEROME
AUTHOR OF
"PAUL KELVER," "IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW,"
"THREE MEN IN A BOAT," ETC.

LONDON
HUTCHINSON AND CO.
PATERNOSTER ROW
1904

STORY THE FIRST--Peter Hope plans his Prospectus

"Come in!" said Peter Hope.

Peter Hope was tall and thin, clean-shaven but for a pair of side
whiskers close-cropped and terminating just below the ear, with hair of
the kind referred to by sympathetic barbers as "getting a little thin on
the top, sir," but arranged with economy, that everywhere is poverty's
true helpmate. About Mr. Peter Hope's linen, which was white though
somewhat frayed, there was a self-assertiveness that invariably arrested
the attention of even the most casual observer. Decidedly there was too
much of it--its ostentation aided and abetted by the retiring nature of
the cut-away coat, whose chief aim clearly was to slip off and disappear
behind its owner's back. "I'm a poor old thing," it seemed to say. "I
don't shine--or, rather, I shine too much among these up-to-date young
modes. I only hamper you. You would be much more comfortable without
me." To persuade it to accompany him, its proprietor had to employ
force, keeping fastened the lowest of its three buttons. At every step,
it struggled for its liberty. Another characteristic of Peter's, linking
him to the past, was his black silk cravat, secured by a couple of gold
pins chained together. Watching him as he now sat writing, his long legs
encased in tightly strapped grey trousering, crossed beneath the table,
the lamplight falling on his fresh-complexioned face, upon the shapely
hand that steadied the half-written sheet, a stranger might have rubbed
his eyes, wondering by what hallucination he thus found himself in
presence seemingly of so