Delphi Complete Works of Jerome K. Jerome (Illustrated) (Series Four) (508 page)

After we were seated, I said: “You are writing a problem play, I’m told. I am going to set you another sort of problem. Supposing, one freezing winter morning, when you had a bad cold, and a train to catch, you discovered, on reaching the bottom rung of those interminable stairs, that you had left your gloves and your handkerchief behind you. What would you do?”

“That wants thinking over,” said Jerome. “Let’s tell off the points, one by one,” which he did — on his fingers.

“One: It’s a freezing winter morning. Two: I have a bad cold. Three: I have a train to catch. Four: I find when I get to the bottom of the stairs, that I’ve left my gloves and my handkerchief behind. The question before the House is, What should I do? — why, put my hands in my pockets — and sniff.”

I do not tell the story as typical of Jerome’s humour, for it is in no sense so, but only as an instance of his readiness of quaint and quick reply. Stories, turning on the use of handkerchiefs, are often, in the hackneyed saying, “funny, but vulgar” — sometimes they are not even funny. They were not to his liking, nor did he count them to be humorous. His own humour consists, sometimes, in “going one better” than the truth. Truth sees life in a mirror, humour may do so through a magnifying glass, but there is always an element of truth in humour. Take, for instance, Jerome’s account of two women making a purchase in a linendraper’s. Somewhat exaggerated it may be, but can anyone, even a woman, deny that it gets very near the facts? I take it from “The Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow” (published by Hurst & Blackett):

“Now, which would you advise, dear? You see, with the red, I shan’t be able to wear my magenta hat.”

“Well, then, why not have the grey?”

“Yes — yes, I think the grey will be
more useful
.”

“It’s a good material.”

“Yes, and it’s a
pretty grey.
You know what I mean, dear; not a
common
grey. Of course, grey is always an
uninteresting
colour.”

“It’s quiet.”

“And then, again, what I feel about the red is that it is so warm-looking. Red makes you
feel
warm even when you’re
not
warm. You know what I mean, dear.”

“Well, then, why not have the red? It suits you — red.”

“No; do you really think so?”

“Well, when you’ve got a colour, I mean, of course.”

“Yes, that
is
the drawback to red. No, I think, on the whole, the grey is
safer.”

“Then you will take the grey, madam?”

“Yes, I think I’d better, don’t you, dear?”

“I like it myself very much.”

“And it’s good wearing stuff. I shall have it trimmed with — oh! you haven’t cut it off, have you?”

“I was just about to, madam.”

“Well, don’t for a moment. Just let me have another look at the red. You see, dear, it has just occurred to me — that chinchilla would look so well on the red.”

“So it would, dear.”

“And, you see, I’ve
got
the chinchilla.”

“Then have the red. Why not?”

“Well, there’s the hat I’m thinking of.”

“You haven’t anything else you could wear with that?”

“Nothing at all, and it would go so
beautifully
with the grey. Yes, I think I’ll have the grey. It’s always a safe colour, grey.”

“Fourteen yards I think you said, madam?”

“Yes, fourteen yards will be enough; because I shall mix it with — One minute. You see, dear, if I take the grey, I shall have nothing to wear with my black jacket.”

“Won’t it go with grey?”

“Not well — not so well as with red.”

“I should have the red, then. You evidently fancy it yourself.”

“No, personally I prefer the grey. But then, one must think of
everything,
and — Good gracious! That’s surely not the time?”

“No, madam, it’s ten minutes slow. We always keep our clocks a little slow.”

“And we were to have been at Madame Jannaway’s at a quarter-past twelve. How long shopping does take! Why, whatever time did we start?”

“About eleven, wasn’t it?”

“About half-past ten. I remember now; because, you know, we said we’d start at half-past nine. We’ve been two hours already!”

“And we don’t seem to have done much, do we?”

“Done literally nothing, and I meant to have done
so
much. I
must
go to Madame Jannaway’s. Have you got my purse, dear? Oh, it’s all right, I’ve got it.”

“Well,
now
, you haven’t decided whether you’re going to have the grey or the red.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what I
do
want now. I had made up my mind a minute ago, and now it’s all gone again — oh, yes, I remember, the red. Yes, I’ll have the red. No, I don’t mean the red, I mean the grey.”

“You were talking about the red last time, if you remember, dear.”

“Oh, so I was, you’re quite right. That’s the worst of shopping. Do you know, I get quite confused sometimes.”

“Then you’ll decide on the red, madam?”

“Yes — yes, I shan’t do any better, shall I, dear? What do
you
think? You haven’t got any other shades of red, have you? This is such an
ugly
red.” The shopman reminds her that she has seen all the other reds, and that this is the particular shade she selected and admired.

“Oh, very well,” she replies, with the air of one from whom all earthly cares are falling. “I must take that then, I suppose. I can’t be worried about it any longer. I’ve wasted half the morning already.”

Outside she recollects three insuperable objections to the red, and four unanswerable arguments why she should have selected the grey. She wonders would they change it, if she went back, and asked to see the shopwalker? Her friend, who wants her lunch, thinks not.

“That is what I hate about shopping,” she says. “One never has time to really
think.”

She says she shan’t go to that shop again.

Here is another instance of Jerome’s method of so twisting, or so exaggerating, the facts with which he started — in this case the invasion of a house by blackbeetles — as to set those facts in a humorous light. The extract is from “Novel Notes” (The Leadenhall Press):

“She [MacShaughnassy’s aunt] sent us a recipe on one occasion, through MacShaughnassy, for the extermination of blackbeetles. We occupied a picturesque old house; but, as with most picturesque old houses, its advantages were chiefly external. There were many holes and cracks and crevices within its creaking framework. Frogs who had lost their way and taken the wrong turning, would suddenly discover themselves in the middle of our dining-room, apparently quite as much to their own surprise and annoyance as to ours. A numerous company of rats and mice, remarkably fond of physical exercises, had fitted the place up as a gymnasium for themselves; and our kitchen, after ten o’clock, was turned into a blackbeetles’ club. They came up through the floor and out through the walls, and gambolled there in their light-hearted and reckless way till daylight.

The rats and mice Amenda did not object to. She said she liked to watch them. But against the blackbeetles she was prejudiced. Therefore, when my wife informed her that MacShaughnassy’s aunt had given us an infallible recipe for their annihilation, she rejoiced.

We purchased the materials, manufactured the mixture, and put it about. The beetles came and ate it. They seemed to like it. They finished it all up, and were evidently vexed that there was not more. But they did not die.

We told these facts to MacShaughnassy. He smiled a very grim smile, and said in a low voice, full of meaning: “Let them eat!”

It appeared that this was one of those slow, insidious poisons. It did not kill the beetle off immediately, but undermined his constitution. Day by day he would sink and droop without being able to tell what was the matter with himself, until one morning we should enter the kitchen to find him lying cold and very still.

So we made more stuff and laid it round each night, and the blackbeetles from all around the parish swarmed to it. Each night they came in greater quantities. They fetched up all their friends and relations. Strange beetles — beetles from other families, with no claim on us whatever — got to hear about the thing, and came in hordes, and tried to rob our blackbeetles of it. By the end of a week we had lured into our kitchen every beetle that wasn’t lame for miles round.

MacShaughnassy said it was a good thing. We should clear the suburb at one swoop. The beetles had now been eating this poison steadily for ten days, and he said that the end could not be far off. I was glad to hear it, because I was beginning to find this unlimited hospitality expensive. It was a dear poison that we were giving them, and they were hearty eaters.

We went downstairs to see how they were getting on. MacShaughnassy thought they seemed queer, and was of opinion that they were breaking up. Speaking for myself, I can only say that a healthier-looking lot of beetles I never wish to see.

One, it is true, did die that very evening. He was detected in the act of trying to make off with an unfairly large portion of the poison, and three or four of the others set upon him savagely and killed him.

But he was the only one, so far as I could ever discover, to whom MacShaughnassy’s recipe proved fatal. As for the others, they grew fat and sleek upon it. Some of them, indeed, began to acquire something of a figure. We lessened their numbers eventually by the help of some common oil-shop poison. But such vast numbers had settled in the house, to finally exterminate them now was hopeless.”

I have known personally many, if not most of the humorists of my time — God bless them! for whether they set out intentionally to be our benefactors, or did not so set out, our benefactors they are, the dispersers of gloom and depression, the bestower of the largess of happy smiles and laughter — and I have found them, as I found Jerome, shy men, highly sensitive men, to whose making went a more serious side than goes to the making even of those who set out intentionally to be “serious” writers. For humour is neither a broad grin on the face of things, nor even a twinkle in the eye, at sight of life’s absurdities. Still less is it, as some persons suppose, a knack or gift for seeing things a-squint, and so for seeing things awry, and comically. A humorist is, on the contrary, straight-sighted, clear-sighted, and keen-sighted. He sees life and his fellows as they
are,
not as they appear to be, and he sees them as a whole, not merely one side at a time, as happens with most non-humorsome men and women. To what shall I liken humour, unless to the prism-glass by which the seemingly white ray, of what we call life, is resolved into its varying and component colours? If, at the edge of the ray, the humorist sees a banding of gay and happy gold, the banding of humour — he sees also, at the other edge, a banding of the violet or the purple which have been chosen as the colour-symbol of sadness and mourning, and so he sees life sorrowfully, as well as sun-fully and fun-fully. For though, to change the metaphor, the lips of the Goddess of Humour may smile at the sight of human folly, yet, when we look into her eyes, we see them sad at the thought of the mysteries, the sorrows, the suffering, and the shrinking — for are we not confronted, sooner or later, with the mystery of death? — of this, our all too brief human life on earth.

PREFACE

IN compiling these memoirs of my old friend I have had assistance which I wish to acknowledge here with much gratitude. First of all I have to thank Mrs and Miss Jerome for their kindly co-operation. This has simplified my task and made it a very pleasant one.

Mr. Coulson Kernahan has been so great-hearted in giving me help, that, if necessary, to render homage to the memory of his dear old friend, Jerome, he would, I am convinced, give himself away.

I am indebted to Mrs. Kernahan Harris, Mr. Frank Shorland, Mr and Mrs. Harry Shorland, Mr. George Wingrave and Mr. Carl Hentschel, for having most willingly placed at my disposal biographical material obtained by them during many years of intimate acquaintance with Mr. Jerome.

I also cordially thank Miss Sybil Thorndike, Mrs. Dorothy Young (Mr. Jerome’s secretary), Professor Gutheim, of Freiburg, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Sir Johnson Forbes-Robertson, for their letters and for giving me permission to use them.

I acknowledge with many thanks the courtesy and kindness of the following publishers for allowing me to make extracts from their publications:

Messrs. J. W. Arrowsmith, Ltd., Messrs Cassell & Co., Ltd., Messrs. Hodder & Stoughton, Ltd., Messrs. Hutchinson & Co. (Publishers), Ltd., The Editor of
The Walsall Observer.

ALFRED MOSS.

“MERTON,”

WALSALL.

CHAPTER I. PARENTAGE

JEROME K. JEROME’S father, Jerome Clapp Jerome, was born in London in the year 1807, and was educated at the Merchant Taylors’ School. He was trained as an Architect, but did not follow architecture as a profession. His inclination was more in the direction of the Nonconformist ministry, and he received some training for that vocation at Rothweil Nonconformist Academy, Northamptonshire. He was never ordained, but, having remarkable gifts as a public speaker, he devoted much of his time to preaching. He was also architect for several chapels: one at Marlborough, in which he afterwards occupied the pulpit. A silver salver still in the possession of his family bears the inscription: “Presented to the Reverend Clapp Jerome by the congregation of the Independent Chapel, Marlborough, June, 1828.” At this time he was only about twenty-one years old.

He then moved to Cirencester, where he was instrumental in building the Independent Chapel in which he conducted the services. His family have in their possession a huge Bible presented to him by the “Ladies of the Congregation”. This indicates that the chapel was opened under his ministry on June 6th, 1833. He then married a Welsh lady, Marguerite, the elder daughter of Mr. Jones, a solicitor, of Swansea, whose family were also Nonconformists. In 1840 he moved to Appledore, where he became the accredited minister of the Appledore Congregational Church, one of the oldest in Devonshire. Whilst there he edited and published a hymn-book, named “The Appledore Hymn-Book”, which was very generally used in the West of England. He had the reputation of being “an exceptionally eloquent preacher, and intellectually superior to the ordinary run of ministers”. He also became popular as a lecturer, and frequently lectured in Bideford Town Hall. He was always sure of a crowded audience.