



Produced by David Widger from page images generously
provided by the Internet Archive









THE OBSERVATIONS OF HENRY


By Jerome K. Jerome

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