The Observations of Henry

The Observations of Henry

The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Observations of Henry, by Jerome
K. Jerome
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Title: The Observations of Henry
Author: Jerome K. Jerome

Release Date: March 7, 2006 [eBook #17943]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
OBSERVATIONS OF HENRY***

Transcribed from the 1901 J. W. Arrowsmith edition by David Price,
email [email protected]

THE OBSERVATIONS OF HENRY

BY JEROME K. JEROME
AUTHOR OF "THREE MEN IN A BOAT," "DIARY OF A
PILGRIMAGE," "THREE MEN ON THE BUMMEL," ETC.
BRISTOL J. W. ARROWSMITH, QUAY STREET LONDON
SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT AND COMPANY
LIMITED 1901

THE GHOST OF THE MARCHIONESS OF APPLEFORD.
This is the story, among others, of Henry the waiter--or, as he now
prefers to call himself, Henri--told to me in the long dining-room of the
Riffel Alp Hotel, where I once stayed for a melancholy week "between
seasons," sharing the echoing emptiness of the place with two maiden
ladies, who talked all day to one another in frightened whispers.
Henry's construction I have discarded for its amateurishness; his
method being generally to commence a story at the end, and then,
working backwards to the beginning, wind up with the middle. But in
all other respects I have endeavoured to retain his method, which was
individual; and this, I think, is the story as he would have told it to me
himself, had he told it in this order:
My first place--well to be honest, it was a coffee shop in the Mile End
Road--I'm not ashamed of it. We all have our beginnings. Young
"Kipper," as we called him--he had no name of his own, not that he
knew of anyhow, and that seemed to fit him down to the ground--had
fixed his pitch just outside, between our door and the music hall at the
corner; and sometimes, when I might happen to have a bit on, I'd get a
paper from him, and pay him for it, when the governor was not about,
with a mug of coffee, and odds and ends that the other customers had
left on their plates--an arrangement that suited both of us. He was just
about as sharp as they make boys, even in the Mile End Road, which is
saying a good deal; and now and then, spying around among the right
sort, and keeping his ears open, he would put me up to a good thing,
and I would tip him a bob or a tanner as the case might be. He was the

sort that gets on--you know.
One day in he walks, for all the world as if the show belonged to him,
with a young imp of a girl on his arm, and down they sits at one of the
tables.
"Garsong," he calls out, "what's the menoo to-day?"
"The menoo to-day," I says, "is that you get outside 'fore I clip you over
the ear, and that you take that back and put it where you found it;"
meaning o' course, the kid.
She was a pretty little thing, even then, in spite of the dirt, with those
eyes like saucers, and red hair. It used to be called "carrots" in those
days. Now all the swells have taken it up--or as near as they can get to
it--and it's auburn.
"'Enery," he replied to me, without so much as turning a hair, "I'm
afraid you're forgetting your position. When I'm on the kerb shouting
'Speshul!' and you comes to me with yer 'a'penny in yer 'and, you're
master an' I'm man. When I comes into your shop to order refreshments,
and to pay for 'em, I'm boss. Savey? You can bring me a rasher and two
eggs, and see that they're this season's. The lidy will have a full-sized
haddick and a cocoa."
Well, there was justice in what he said. He always did have sense, and I
took his order. You don't often see anybody put it away like that girl
did. I took it she hadn't had a square meal for many a long day. She
polished off a ninepenny haddick, skin and all, and after that she had
two penny rashers, with six slices of bread and butter--"doorsteps," as
we used to call them--and two half pints of cocoa, which is a meal in
itself the way we used to make it. "Kipper" must have had a bit of luck
that day. He couldn't have urged her on more had it been a free feed.
"'Ave