Tommy and Co.. Jerome Klapka Jerome

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      “I could do it in my spare time.”

      “You see, Tommy, I should want you to go about with me – to be always with me.”

      “Better try me first. Maybe you’re making an error.”

      Peter was learning the wisdom of the serpent.

      “Quite right, Tommy. We will first see what you can do. Perhaps, after all, it may turn out that you are better as a cook.” In his heart Peter doubted this.

      But the seed had fallen upon good ground. It was Tommy herself that manoeuvred her first essay in journalism. A great man had come to London – was staying in apartments especially prepared for him in St. James’s Palace. Said every journalist in London to himself: “If I could obtain an interview with this Big Man, what a big thing it would be for me!” For a week past, Peter had carried everywhere about with him a paper headed: “Interview of Our Special Correspondent with Prince Blank,” questions down left-hand column, very narrow; space for answers right-hand side, very wide. But the Big Man was experienced.

      “I wonder,” said Peter, spreading the neatly folded paper on the desk before him, “I wonder if there can be any way of getting at him – any dodge or trick, any piece of low cunning, any plausible lie that I haven’t thought of.”

      “Old Man Martin – called himself Martini – was just such another,” commented Tommy. “Come pay time, Saturday afternoon, you just couldn’t get at him – simply wasn’t any way. I was a bit too good for him once, though,” remembered Tommy, with a touch of pride in her voice; “got half a quid out of him that time. It did surprise him.”

      “No,” communed Peter to himself aloud, “I don’t honestly think there can be any method, creditable or discreditable, that I haven’t tried.” Peter flung the one-sided interview into the wastepaper-basket, and slipping his notebook into his pocket, departed to drink tea with a lady novelist, whose great desire, as stated in a postscript to her invitation, was to avoid publicity, if possible.

      Tommy, as soon as Peter’s back was turned, fished it out again.

      An hour later in the fog around St. James’s Palace stood an Imp, clad in patched trousers and a pepper-and-salt jacket turned up about the neck, gazing with admiring eyes upon the sentry.

      “Now, then, young seventeen-and-sixpence the soot,” said the sentry, “what do you want?”

      “Makes you a bit anxious, don’t it,” suggested the Imp, “having a big pot like him to look after?”

      “Does get a bit on yer mind, if yer thinks about it,” agreed the sentry.

      “How do you find him to talk to, like?”

      “Well,” said the sentry, bringing his right leg into action for the purpose of relieving his left, “ain’t ’ad much to do with ’im myself, not person’ly, as yet. Oh, ’e ain’t a bad sort when yer know ’im.”

      “That’s his shake-down, ain’t it?” asked the Imp, “where the lights are.”

      “That’s it,” admitted sentry. “You ain’t an Anarchist? Tell me if you are.”

      “I’ll let you know if I feel it coming on,” the Imp assured him.

      Had the sentry been a man of swift and penetrating observation – which he wasn’t – he might have asked the question in more serious a tone. For he would have remarked that the Imp’s black eyes were resting lovingly upon a rain-water-pipe, giving to a skilful climber easy access to the terrace underneath the Prince’s windows.

      “I would like to see him,” said the Imp.

      “Friend o’ yours?” asked the sentry.

      “Well, not exactly,” admitted the Imp. “But there, you know, everybody’s talking about him down our street.”

      “Well, yer’ll ’ave to be quick about it,” said the sentry. “’E’s off to-night.”

      Tommy’s face fell. “I thought it wasn’t till Friday morning.”

      “Ah!” said the sentry, “that’s what the papers say, is it?” The sentry’s voice took unconsciously the accent of those from whom no secret is hid. “I’ll tell yer what yer can do,” continued the sentry, enjoying an unaccustomed sense of importance. The sentry glanced left, then right. “’E’s a slipping off all by ’imself down to Osborne by the 6.40 from Waterloo. Nobody knows it – ’cept, o’ course, just a few of us. That’s ’is way all over. ’E just ’ates – ”

      A footstep sounded down the corridor. The sentry became statuesque.

      At Waterloo, Tommy inspected the 6.40 train. Only one compartment indicated possibilities, an extra large one at the end of the coach next the guard’s van. It was labelled “Reserved,” and in the place of the usual fittings was furnished with a table and four easy-chairs. Having noticed its position, Tommy took a walk up the platform and disappeared into the fog.

      Twenty minutes later, Prince Blank stepped hurriedly across the platform, unnoticed save by half a dozen obsequious officials, and entered the compartment reserved for him. The obsequious officials bowed. Prince Blank, in military fashion, raised his hand. The 6.40 steamed out slowly.

      Prince Blank, who was a stout gentleman, though he tried to disguise the fact, seldom found himself alone. When he did, he generally indulged himself in a little healthy relaxation. With two hours’ run to Southampton before him, free from all possibility of intrusion, Prince Blank let loose the buttons of his powerfully built waistcoat, rested his bald head on the top of his chair, stretched his great legs across another, and closed his terrible, small eyes.

      For an instant it seemed to Prince Blank that a draught had entered into the carriage. As, however, the sensation immediately passed away, he did not trouble to wake up. Then the Prince dreamed that somebody was in the carriage with him – was sitting opposite to him. This being an annoying sort of dream, the Prince opened his eyes for the purpose of dispelling it. There was somebody sitting opposite to him – a very grimy little person, wiping blood off its face and hands with a dingy handkerchief. Had the Prince been a man capable of surprise, he would have been surprised.

      “It’s all right,” assured him Tommy. “I ain’t here to do any harm. I ain’t an Anarchist.”

      The Prince, by a muscular effort, retired some four or five inches and commenced to rebutton his waistcoat.

      “How did you get here?” asked the Prince.

      “’Twas a bigger job than I’d reckoned on,” admitted Tommy, seeking a dry inch in the smeared handkerchief, and finding none. “But that don’t matter,” added Tommy cheerfully, “now I’m here.”

      “If you do not wish me to hand you over to the police at Southampton, you had better answer my questions,” remarked the Prince drily.

      Tommy was not afraid of princes, but in the lexicon of her harassed youth “Police” had always been a word of dread.

      “I wanted to get at you.”

      “I gather that.”

      “There didn’t seem any other way. It’s jolly СКАЧАТЬ