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Transcribed from the 1916 Martin Secker edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org





                         THE FIGURE IN THE CARPET


                              BY HENRY JAMES

                      [Picture: Decorative graphic]

                                * * * * *

                          LONDON; MARTIN SECKER
                     NUMBER FIVE JOHN STREET ADELPHI

                                * * * * *

                    This edition first published 1916
                       The text follows that of the
                            Definitive Edition




CHAPTER I


I HAD done a few things and earned a few pence--I had perhaps even had
time to begin to think I was finer than was perceived by the patronising;
but when I take the little measure of my course (a fidgety habit, for
it's none of the longest yet) I count my real start from the evening
George Corvick, breathless and worried, came in to ask me a service.  He
had done more things than I, and earned more pence, though there were
chances for cleverness I thought he sometimes missed.  I could only
however that evening declare to him that he never missed one for
kindness.  There was almost rapture in hearing it proposed to me to
prepare for _The Middle_, the organ of our lucubrations, so called from
the position in the week of its day of appearance, an article for which
he had made himself responsible and of which, tied up with a stout
string, he laid on my table the subject.  I pounced upon my
opportunity--that is on the first volume of it--and paid scant attention
to my friend's explanation of his appeal.  What explanation could be more
to the point than my obvious fitness for the task?  I had written on Hugh
Vereker, but