 Chapter 1 of They and I by Jerome K. Jerome. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Deborah Lynn. They and I by Jerome K. Jerome. Chapter 1. There's not a large house, I said. We don't want a large house. Two spare bedrooms and the little three-cornered place you see marked there on the plan, next to the bathroom, and which we'll just do for a bachelor, will be all we shall require at all events for the present. Later on, if I ever get rich, we can throw out a wing. The kitchen I shall have to break to your mother gently. Whatever the original architect could have been thinking of. Never mind the kitchen, said Dick, what about the billiard room? The way children nowadays will interrupt a parent is nothing short of a national disgrace. I also wish Dick would not sit on the table swinging his legs. It is not respectful. Why, when I was a boy, as I said to him, I should have soon thought of sitting on a table interrupting my father. What's this thing in the middle of the hall that looks like a grating, demanded Rabinah? She means the stairs, explained Dick. Then why don't they look like stairs, commented Rabinah? They do, replied Dick, to people with sense. They don't, persisted Rabinah. They look like a grating. Rabinah, with the plan spread out across her knee, was sitting balanced on the arm of an easy chair. Really, I hardly see the use of buying chairs for these people. Nobody seems to know what they are for, except to be one or another of the dogs, purchase are all they want. If we threw the drawing room into the hall and could do away with the stairs, thought Rabinah, we should be able to give a dance now and then. Perhaps, I suggested, you would like to clear out the house altogether, leaving nothing but the four bare walls. That would give us still more room, that would, for just living in. We could fix up a shed in the garden or... I'm talking seriously, said Rabinah. What's the good of a drawing room? One only wants it to show the sort of people into that one wishes hadn't come. They'd sit about looking miserable just as well anywhere else. If we could only get rid of the stairs. Oh, of course, we could get rid of the stairs, I agreed. It would be a bit awkward at first, but we wanted to go to bed, but I daresay we should get used to it. We could have a ladder and climb up to our rooms through the windows, or we might adopt the Norwegian method and have the stairs outside. I wish you would be sensible, said Rabinah. I am trying to be, I explained, and I am also trying to put a little sense into you. At present, you are crazy about dancing. If you had your way, you would turn the house into a dancing saloon with primitive sleeping accommodation attached. It will last six months, your dancing craze. Then you will want the house transformed into a swimming bath or a skating rink or cleared out for hockey. My idea may be conventional. I don't expect you to sympathize with it. My notion is just an ordinary Christian house, not a gymnasium. There are going to be bedrooms in this house, and there's going to be a staircase leading to them. It may strike you assorted, but there is also going to be a kitchen. Though why, when building the house, they should have put the kitchen. Don't forget the billiard room, said Dick. If you thought more of your future career and less about billiards, Rabin pointed out to him, perhaps you'd get through your little go in the course of the next few years. If Pa only had sense, I mean, if he wasn't so absurdly indulgent wherever you are concerned, he would not have a billiard table in the house. You talk like that, retorted Dick, merely because you can't play. I can beat you anyhow, retorted Rabin. One, submitted Dick, once in six weeks. Twice, corrected Rabin. You don't play, Dick explained to her. You just whack around and trust the Providence. I don't whack around, said Rabin. I always aim at something. When you try and it doesn't come off, you say it's hard luck. And when I try and it does come off, you say it's fluking. So like a man. You both of you, I said, attached too much importance to the score. When you try for a cannon off the white and hit it on the wrong side and send it into a pocket and your own ball travels on and makes a losing hazard off the red instead of being vexed with yourselves. If you get a really good table, Governor, said Dick, I'll teach you billiards. I do believe Dick really thinks he can play. It is the same with golf. Beginners are invariably lucky. I think I shall like it, they tell you. I seem to have the game in me, if you understand. There is a friend of mine, an old sea captain. He is the sort of man that when the three balls are lying in a straight line tucked up under the cushion, looks pleased. Because then he knows he can make a cannon and leave the red just where he wants it. An Irish youngster named Maluni, the college tum of Dicks was staying with us in the afternoon being wet. The captain said he would explain it to Maluni how a young man might practice billiards without any danger of cutting the cloth. He taught him how to hold the cue and he told him how to make a bridge. Maluni was grateful and worked for about an hour. He did not so much promise. He is a powerfully built young man and he didn't seem able to get it into his head that he wasn't playing cricket. Whenever he hit a little low, the result was generally lost ball. To save time and damage to furniture Dick and I fielded for him. Dick stood at long stop and I was short slip. It was dangerous work, however, and when Dick had caught him out twice running we agreed that we had won and took him into tea. In the evening none of the rest of us being keen to try our luck a second time the captain said that just for the joke of the thing he would give Maluni eighty-five and play him a hundred up. To confess the truth I find no particular fun myself in playing billiards with the captain. The game consists as far as I am concerned in walking round the table throwing him back the balls and saying good. By the time my turn comes I don't seem to care what happens. Everything seems against me. He is a kind old gentleman and he means well but the tone in which he says hard lines whenever I miss an easy stroke irritates me. I feel I'd like to throw the balls at his head and fling the table out of window. I suppose it is that I am in a fretful state of mind but the mere way in which he chalks his cue aggravates me. He carries his own chalk in his waistcoat pocket as if our chalk wasn't good enough for him and when he has finished chalking he smooths the tip round with his finger and thumb and taps the cue against the table. Oh go on with the game I want to say to him don't be so full of tricks. The captain let off with a miss in bulk. Maluni gripped his cue drew in a deep breath and let fly. The result was ten, a cannon in all three balls in the same pocket. As a matter of fact he made the cannon twice but the second time as we explained to him of course did not count. Good beginning said the captain. Maluni seemed pleased with himself and took off his coat. Maluni's ball missed the red on its first journey up the table by about a foot but found it later on and sent it into a pocket. Ninety-nine plays nothing said Dick who was marking better make it a hundred and fifty hadn't we captain? Well I'd like to get in a shot said the captain before the game is over perhaps we had better make it a hundred and fifty if Mr. Maluni has no objection. Whatever you think right sir said Rory Maluni. Maluni finished his break for twenty-two leaving himself hanging over the middle pocket and the red tucked up in bulk. Nothing plays a hundred and eight said Dick. What I want to score said the captain I'll ask for it. Big pardon sir said Dick I hate a noisy game said the captain. The captain making up his mind without much waste of time sent his ball under the cushion six inches outside bulk. What will I do here? asked Maluni. I don't know what you will do said the captain I'm waiting to see. Owing to the position of the ball Maluni was unable to employ his whole strength all he did that turn was to pocket the captain's ball and leave himself under the bottom cushion four inches from the red. The captain said a nautical word and gave another miss. Maluni squared up to the balls for the third time. They flew before him panic stricken they banged against one another came back and hit one another again for no reason whatever. The red in particular Maluni had succeeded apparently in frightening out of its wits. It is a stupid ball generally speaking I read it's one idea to get under a cushion and watch the game. With Maluni it soon found it was safe nowhere on the table. Its only hope was pockets. I may have been mistaken my eye may have been deceived by the rapidity of the play but it seemed to me that the red never waited to be hit. When it saw Maluni's ball coming forward at the rate of 40 miles an hour it just made for the nearest pocket. It rushed round the table looking for pockets. If in its excitement it passed an empty pocket it turned back and crawled in. There were times when in its terror the table and took shelter under the sofa or behind the sideboard one began to feel sorry for the red. The captain had scored a legitimate 38 and Maluni had given him 24 when it really seemed as if the captain's chance had come. I could have scored myself as the balls were then. 62 plays 128 now then captain game in your hands said Dick we gathered round. The children left their play eager the bright young faces eager with expectation the old worn veteran squinting down his cue as if afraid that watching Maluni's play might have given it the squirms. Now follow this I whispered to Maluni don't notice merely what he does but try and understand why he does it any fool after a little practice that is can hit a ball but why do you hit it what happens after you've hit it what hush said Dick he pushed it forward pretty stroke I whispered to Maluni now that's the sort I offer by way of explanation that the captain by this time was probably too full of bottled up language to be master of his nerves the ball traveled slowly past the red Dick said afterwards that you couldn't have put so much as a sheet of paper between them it comforts a man sometimes when you tell him this and at other times it only makes him matter it traveled on and passed the white who could have put quite a lot of paper between it and the white and dropped with a content of thud into the top left hand pocket why does he do that Maluni whispered Maluni has a singularly hearty whisper Dick and I got the women and children out of the room as quickly as we could but of course Veronica managed to tumble over something on the way Veronica would find something to tumble over in the desert of Sahara and a few days later I overheard expressions through the nursery door that made my hair rise up I entered and found Veronica standing on the table Jumbo was sitting upon the music stool the poor dog himself was looking scared though he must have heard a bit of language in his time one way and another Veronica I said are you not ashamed of yourself you wicked child how dare you it's all right said Veronica I don't really mean any harm he's a sailor and I have to talk to him I don't know he's being talked to I pay hardworking conscientious ladies to teach this child things right and proper for her to know they tell her clever things that Julius Caesar said observations made by Marcus Aurelius that pondered over might help her to become a beautiful character she complains that it produces a strange buzzy feeling in her head and her mother argues that perhaps her brain is of the creative order not intended to remember much there's going to be something a good round dozen oaths the captain must have let fly before Dick and I succeeded in rolling her out of the room she had only heard them once yet so far as I could judge she had got them letter perfect the captain now no longer under the necessity of employing all his energies to suppress his natural instincts gradually recovered form and eventually the game stood at 149 all Maloney to play the captain had left the balls in a position that would have disheartened any other opponent than Maloney to any other opponent than Maloney the captain would have offered irritating sympathy afraid the balls are not rolling well for you tonight the captain would have said or sorry sir I don't seem to have left you very much tonight the captain wasn't feeling playful well if he scores off that said dick short of locking up the balls and turning out the lights I don't myself see how one to stop inside the captain the captain's ball was in hand Maloney went for the red and hit perhaps it would be more correct to say frightened it into a pocket Maloney's ball with the table to itself then gave a solo performance and ended up by breaking a window it was what the lawyers call a nice point what was the effect upon the score Maloney argued that seeing he had pocketed the red before his own ball left the table his three should be counted first and that therefore he had won dick maintained that a ball that had ended up in a flower bed couldn't be deemed to have scored anything the captain declined to assist he said that although he had been playing billions for upwards of 40 years the incident was new to him my own feeling was that of thankfulness that we had got through the game without anybody being really injured we agreed that the person to decide the point would be the editor of the field the game still undecided the captain came into my study the next morning he said if you haven't written that letter to the field don't mention my name they know me on the field I would rather it did not get about that I have been playing with a man who cannot keep his ball within the four walls of a billiard room well I answered I know most of the fellows on the field myself they don't often get hold of anything novel in the way of a story when they do they are up to harp upon it to keep my own name out of it all together it is not a point likely to crop up often said the captain I'd let it rest if I were you I should like to have had it settled in the end I wrote the editor a careful letter in a disguised hand giving a false name and address but if any answer ever appeared I must have missed it myself I have a sort of consciousness that somewhere inside me there is quite a good player if only I could persuade him to come out he is shy that is all he does not seem able to play when people are looking on the shots he misses when people are looking on would give you a wrong idea of him when nobody is about a prettier game you do not often see if some folks who fancy themselves could see me when there is nobody about it might take the conceit out of them only once I played up to what I feel is my real form and then it led to argument I was staying at a hotel in Switzerland on the second evening a pleasant spoken young fellow who said he had read all my books later he appeared surprised on learning I had written more than two asked me if I would care to play a hundred up we played even and I paid for the table the next evening he said he thought it would make a better game if he gave me 40 and I broke it was a fairly close finish and afterwards he suggested that I should put down my name for the handicapped they were arranging I am afraid I answered I hardly play well enough just a quiet game with you is one thing but in a handicapped with a crowd looking on I should not let that trouble you he said there are some here who play worse than you just one or two it passes the evening it was merely a friendly affair I paid my 20 marks and was given plus a hundred I drew for my first game a chatty type of man who started minus 20 we neither of us did much for the first five minutes and then I made a break of 44 there was not a fluke in it from beginning to end I was never more astonished in my life it seemed to me it was the cue was doing it minus 20 was even more astonished I heard him as I passed who handicapped this man he asked I did said the pleasant spoken youngster oh said minus 20 friend of yours I presume there are evenings that seem to belong to you we finished that 250 under the three-quarters of an hour I explained to minus 20 he was plus 63 at the end that my play that night had been exceptional he said that he had heard of cases similar I left him talking volubley to the committee he was not a nice man at all after that I did not care to win and that of course was fatal the less I tried the more impossible it seemed for me to do wrong I was left in at the last with a man from another hotel but for that I am convinced I should have carried off the handicap our hotel didn't anyhow want the other hotel to win so they gathered around me and offered me sound advice and begged me to be careful but the natural result that I went back to my usual form quite suddenly never before or since have I played as I played that week but it showed me what I could do I should get a new table with proper pockets this time something wrong about our pockets the balls go into them and then come out again you would think they had seen something there to frighten them they come out trembling and hold onto the cushion I should also get a new red ball I fancy it must be a very old ball our red it seems to me to be always tired the billiard room I said to Dick I see my way too easily enough adding another 10 feet to what is now the dairy will give us 28 by 20 will be sufficient even for your friend Maluni the drawing room is too small to be of any use I may decide as Robin has suggested to throw it into the hall but the stairs will remain for dancing, private theatricals things to keep your children out of mischief I have an idea I will explain to you later on the kitchen can I have a room to myself ask Veronica Veronica was sitting on the floor staring into the fire her chin supported by her hand Veronica and those rare moments when she is resting from her troubles wears a holy far away expression apt to mislead the stranger governesses new to her have their doubts whether on these occasions they are justified in dragging her back to discuss mere dates and tables poets who are friends of mine coming unexpectedly upon Veronica standing by the window gazing upward at the evening star have thought it was a vision until they got closer and found that she was sucking peppermints I should so like to have a room all to myself added Veronica it would be a room commented Robin it wouldn't have your hair pins sticking up all over the bed anyhow murmured Veronica dreamily I like that said Robin why you're harder than I am said Veronica I should wish you to have a room Veronica I said my fear is that in place a tidy bedroom in the house a room that makes me shudder every time I see it through the open door in spite of all I can say generally is wide open I'm not untidy said Robin not really I know where everything is in the dark if people would only leave them alone you are you're about the most untidy girl I know said Dick I'm not said Robin you don't see other girls rooms look at yours at Cambridge you've left him at first when a man's working said Dick he must have an orderly place to work in suggested Robin Dick sighed it's never any good talking to you said Dick you don't even see your own fault I can said Robin I see them more than anyone all I claim is justice show me Veronica I said that you are worthy to possess a room at present you appear to regard the whole house I find your gaiters on the croquet lawn a portion of your costume an article that anyone possessed of the two feelings of a lady would desire to keep hidden from the world is discovered waving from the staircase window I put it out to be mended explained Veronica you opened the door and flung it out I told you of it at the time said Robin you do the same with your boots you are too high spirited for your size explained Dick to her try to be less dashing I could also wish Veronica I continued that you shed your back comb less easily or at least that you knew when you had shed it as for your gloves well hunting your gloves has come to be our leading winter sport people look in such funny places for them said Veronica granted but be just Veronica I pleaded admit that it isn't funny places we occasionally find them when looking for your things one learns Veronica never to despair so long as there remains a corner unexplored inside or outside the house within the half mile radius hope need not be abandoned Veronica was still gazing dreamily into the fire I suppose said Veronica it's reddy it's what I said she means her reddy suggested Dick cheeky young beggar I wonder you let her talk to you the way she does besides added Robin as I am always explaining to you Veronica is a literary man with him and as part of his temperament it's hard on us children said Veronica we were all agreed with the exception of Veronica that it was time Veronica went to bed as chairman I took it upon myself to closure the debate end of chapter one chapter two of they and I by Jerome K. Jerome the slipper box recording is in the public domain recording by Deborah Lynn they and I by Jerome K. Jerome chapter two do you mean governor that you have actually bought the house demanded dick or are we only talking about it this time dick I answered I have done it dick looked serious is it what you wanted he asked no dick I replied it is not what I wanted I wanted an old fashioned picturesque rambling sort of a place all gables and ivy and Oreo windows you are mixing things up dick interrupted gables and Oreo windows don't go together I beg your pardon dick I corrected him in the house I wanted they do it is the style of house you find in the Christmas number I have never seen it anywhere else but I took a fancy to it from the first it is not too far from the church and it lights up well at night one of these days I used to say to myself when a boy be a clever man and live in a house just like that it was my dream and what is this place like demanded Robin this place you have bought the agent I exclaimed claims for it that it is capable of improvement I asked him to what school of architecture he would say it belonged he said he thought that it must have been a local school and pointed out what seems to be the truth that nowadays they do not build such houses near to the river demanded dick well by the road I answered I dare say it may be a couple of miles and by the shortest way questioned dick that is the shortest way I explained there's a prettier way through the woods but that is about three miles and a half but we had decided it was to be near the river said Robin we also decided I replied that it was to be on sandy soil with a southwest aspect only one thing in this house has a southwest aspect and that's the back door I asked the agent about the sand he advised me if I wanted it in any quantity to get an estimate from the railway company I wanted it on a hill it is on a hill with a bigger hill in front of it I didn't want that other hill I wanted an uninterrupted view of the southern half of England I wanted to take people out on the step and cram them with stories about our being able on clear days to see the Bristol Channel they might not have believed me but without that hill I could have stuck to it and they could not have been certain not dead certain I was lying personally I should have liked a house where something had happened I should have liked myself a blood stain not a fussy blood stain a neat unobtrusive blood stain that would have been content most of its time to remain hidden under the mat shown only occasionally as a treat to visitors I had hopes even of a ghost I don't mean one of those noisy ghosts that doesn't seem to know it is dead a lady ghost would have been my fancy a gentle ghost with quiet pretty ways this house well it is such a sensible looking house that is my chief objection to it it has got an echo if you go to the end of the garden and shout at it very loudly it answers you back this is the only bit of fun you can have with it even then it answers you in such a tone you feel it thinks the whole thing silly is doing it merely to humor you it is one of those houses it is one of those houses that always seems to be thinking of its rates and taxes any reason at all for your having bought it ask dick yes dick I answered we are all of us tired of this suburb we want to live in the country and be good to live in the country with any comfort it is necessary to have a house there this being admitted it follows we must either build a house or buy one I would rather not build a house tall boys built himself a house you know tall boys when I first met him before he started building he was a cheerful soul with a kindly word for everyone the builder assures him that in another 20 years when the color has had time to tone down his house will be a picture that president makes him billiest the mere sight of it year by year they tell him as the dampness wears itself away he will suffer less and less from rheumatism ague and lumbago he has a head around the garden 15 inches high to keep the boys out he has put up barbed wire fencing but wire fencing affords no real privacy when the tall boys are taking coffee on the lawn there is generally a crowd from the village watching them there are trees in the garden you know they are trees there is a label tied to each one telling you what sort of tree it is for the moment there is a similarity about them 30 years hence tall boys estimates they will afford him shade and comfort anytime he hopes to be dead I want a house that has got over all its troubles I don't want to spend the rest of my life bringing up a young and inexperienced house but why this particular house urged robin if as you say it is not the house you wanted because my dear girl I answered it is less unlike the house I wanted than other houses I have seen when we are young we make up our minds to try and get what we want when we have arrived at years of discretion we decide to try and want what we can get it saves time during the last two years I have seen about 60 houses and out of the lot there was only one that was really the house I wanted hitherto I have kept the story to myself even now thinking about it irritates me it was not an agent who told me of it I met a man by chance in a railway carriage he had a black eye if ever I meet him again I will give him another he accounted for it by explaining that he had had trouble with the golf ball and at the time I believed him I mentioned to him in conversation I was looking for a house he described this place to me and it seemed to me hours before the train stopped at a station when it did I got out and took the next train back I did not even wait for lunch I had my bicycle with me and I went straight there it was well it was the house I wanted if it had vanished suddenly and I had found myself in bed everything would have seemed more reasonable the proprietor opened the door to me himself he had the bearing of a retired military man it was afterwards I learned he was the proprietor I said good afternoon if it is not troubling you I would like to look over the house we were standing in the oak paneled hall I noticed the carved staircase about which the man in the train had told me also the tutor fireplaces that is all I had time to notice at that moment I was lying on my back in the middle of the gravel with the door shut I looked up I saw the old maniac's head sticking out of a little window it was an evil face he had a gun in his hand I am going to count twenty he said if you are not the other side of the gate by then I shoot I ran over the figures myself on my way to the gate I made it in eighteen I had an hour to wait for the train I talked the matter over with the station master yes he said there will be trouble up there one of these days I said it seems to have begun he said it is the Indian's son it gets into their heads we have one or two in the neighborhood they are quiet enough till something happens if I had been two seconds longer I said I believe he had done it it is a taking house said the station master not too big and not too little it is the sort of house people seem to be looking for I don't envy I don't envy I said the next person that finds it he settled himself down here said the station master about ten years ago since then if one person is offered to take the house off his hands I suppose a thousand have at first he would laugh at them good temperately explain to them that his idea was to live there himself in peace and quietness till he died two out of every three of them would express their willingness to wait for that and suggest some arrangement that they might enter into possession say a week after the funeral the last few months it has been worse than ever I reckon you are about the eighth that has been up there this week and today only Thursday there is something to be said you know for the old man and did he ask Dick did he shoot the next party that came along don't be so silly Dick said Robin it is a story tell us another Pa I don't know what you mean Robin I said if you mean to imply Robin has said she didn't but I know quite well she did because I am an author and have to tell stories for my living people think I don't know any truth it is vexing enough to be doubted when one is exaggerating to have sneers flung at one by one's own kith and kin when one is struggling to confine oneself to bald bare narrative well where is the inducement to be truthful there are times when I almost say to myself that I will never tell the truth again as it happens I said the story is true in many places I pass over your indifference to the risk I ran though a nice girl at the point where the gun was mentioned would have expressed alarm anyhow at the end you might have said something more sympathetic than merely tell us another he did not shoot the next party that arrived for the reason that the very next day his wife alarmed at what had happened went up to London and consulted an expert none too soon as it turned out the poor old fellow died six months later in a private lunatic asylum I had it from the station master on passing through the junction again this spring the house fell into the possession of his nephew who is living in it now he is a youngish man with a large family and people have learnt that the place is not for sale it seems to me rather a sad story the indian son as the station master thinks may have started the trouble but the end was undoubtedly hastened by the annoyance to which the unfortunate gentleman had been subjected and I myself might have been shot the only thing that comforts me is thinking of that fool's black eye the fool that set me there and none of the other houses suggested dick were any good at all there were drawbacks, dick I explained there was a house in Essex it was one of the first your mother and I inspected I nearly shed tears of joy when I read the advertisement it had once been a priori Queen Elizabeth had slept there on her way to Greenwich a photograph of the house accompanied the advertisement I should not have believed the thing had it been a picture it was under 12 miles from Charing Cross the owner it was stated was open to offers all humbug I suppose suggested dick the advertisement if anything I replied had underestimated the attractiveness of that house all I blame the advertisement for is that it did not mention other things it did not mention for instance that since Queen Elizabeth's time the neighborhood had changed it did not mention that the entrance was between a public house on one side of the gate and a fried fish shop on the other that the great eastern railway company had established a goods depot at the bottom of the garden that the drawing room windows looked out on extensive chemical works and the dining room windows which were around the corner on a stone mason's yard the house itself was a dream the sense of it demanded dick what do house agents think is the good of it do they think people likely to take a house after reading the advertisement without ever going to see it I asked an agent once that very question I replied he said they did it first and foremost to keep up the spirits of the owner the man who wanted to sell the house he said that when a man was trying to part with the house he had to listen to so much abuse of it from people who came to see it that if somebody did not stick up for the house all that could be said for it and gloss over its defects he would end by becoming so ashamed of it he would want to give it away or blow it up with dynamite he said that reading the advertisement and the agent's catalog was the only thing that reconciled him to being the owner of the house he said one client of his had been trying to sell his house for years until one day in the office he read by chance the agent's description of it upon which he went straight home took down the board and has lived there contentedly ever since from that point of view there is reason in the system but for the house hunter it works badly one agent sent me a day's journey to see a house standing in the middle of a brick field with a view of the Grand Junction Canal I asked him where was the river he had mentioned he explained it was the other side of the canal but on a lower level that was the only reason why from the house you couldn't see it I asked him for his picturesque scenery he explained it was farther on round the bend he didn't think me unreasonable expecting to find everything I wanted just outside the front door he suggested my shutting out the brick field if I didn't like the brick field with trees he suggested the eucalyptus tree he said it was a rapid grower he also told me that it yielded gum another house I traveled down into Dorsetshire to see it contained according to the advertisement perhaps the most perfect specimen of Norman Arch extant in southern England it was to be found mentioned in Dugdale and dated from the 13th century I don't quite know what I expected I argued to myself that there must have been ruffians of only moderate means even in those days here and there some robber baron who had struck a poor line of country would have had to be content with a homely little castle a few such hidden away in unfrequented districts had escaped destruction more civilized descendants had adapted them to later requirements I had in my mind before the train reached Dorsetshire something between a miniature tower of London and a medieval addition of Anne Hathaway's cottage at Stratford I pictured dungeons and a drawbridge perhaps a secret passage Lambchick has a secret passage leading from behind a sort of portrait in the dining room to the back of the kitchen chimney they use it for a linen closet it seems to me a pity of course originally it went on farther the vicar who is a bit of an antiquarian believes it comes out somewhere in the churchyard I tell Lambchick he ought to have it opened up but his wife doesn't want it touched she seems to think it just right as it is I have always had a fancy for a secret passage I decided I would have the drawbridge repaired and made practicable flanked on each side with flowers and tubs it would have been a novel and picturesque approach was there a drawbridge? asked Dick there was no drawbridge I explained the entrance to the house was through what the caretaker called the conservatory it was not the sort of house that goes with the drawbridge then what about the Norman Arch's argued Dick not Arch's I corrected him Arch the Norman Arch was downstairs in the kitchen it was the kitchen that had been built in the 13th century and did not had much done to it since apparently originally I should say it had been the torture chamber it gave you that idea I think your mother would have raised objections to the kitchen anyhow when she came to think of the cook it would have been necessary to put it to the woman before engaging her you don't mind cooking in a dungeon in the dark do you some cooks would the rest of the house was what I should describe as present day mixed style the last tenant but one had thrown out a bathroom and corrugated iron then there was a house in Berkshire that I took your mother to see with a trout stream running through the grounds I imagined myself going out after lunch catching trout for dinner inviting swagger friends down to my little place in Berkshire for a few days trout fishing there was a man I once knew who was now a baronet he used to be keen on fishing I thought maybe I'd get him it would have looked well in the literary gossip column among the other distinguished guests you know the sort of thing I had the paragraph already in my mind the wonder is I didn't buy a rod wasn't there any trout stream questioned robin there was a stream I answered if anything too much stream the stream was the first thing your mother noticed she noticed it a quarter of an hour before we came to it before we knew it was the stream we drove back to the town and she bought a smelling bottle the larger size it gave your mother a headache that stream she had the agent's office was opposite the station I allowed myself half an hour on my way back to tell him what I thought of him and then I missed the train I could have got it in if he had let me talk all the time but he would interrupt he said it was the people at the paper mill that he had spoken to them about it more than once he seemed to think sympathy was all I wanted he assured me on his word as a house agent that it had once been a trout stream the fact was historical Isaac Walton had fished there that was prior to the paper mill he thought a collection of trout male and female might be bought and placed in it preference being given to some hearty breed of trout accustomed to roughing it I told him I wasn't looking for a place where I could play it being Noah left him as I explained to him with the intention of going straight to my solicitors and instituting proceedings against him for talking like a fool and he put on his hat against proceedings against me for libel I suppose that with myself he thought better of it in the end but I'm tired of having my life turned into one perpetual first of April this house that I had bought is not my heart's desire but about it there are possibilities we will put in lattice windows and fuss up the chimneys maybe we will let in a tablet over the front door with a date always looks well it is a picturesque figure the old fashioned five by the time we have done with it for all practical purposes it will be a tutor manor house I have always wanted an old tutor manor house there is no reason so far as I can see why there should not be stories connected with this house why should not we have a room in which somebody once slept we won't have Queen Elizabeth I'm tired of Queen Elizabeth besides I don't believe she'd have been nice why not Queen Anne a quiet gentle old lady from all accounts in trouble or better still Shakespeare he was constantly to and fro between London and Stratford it would not have been so very much out of his way the rumor Shakespeare slept why it's a new idea nobody ever seems to have thought of Shakespeare there is the four post beds dead your mother never liked it she will insist at Harbour's things we might hang the wall with scenes from his plays and have a bust of the old gentleman himself over the door to the end by believing that he really did sleep there what about cupboards suggested Dick the little mother will clamor for cupboards it is unexplainable the average woman's passion for cupboards in heaven her first request I am sure is always can I have a cupboard she would keep her husband and children in cupboards if she had her way that would be her idea of the perfect home everybody wrapped up with a piece of camper in his or her own proper cupboard I knew a woman once who was happy for a woman she lived in a house with 29 cupboards I think it must have been built by a woman there were spacious cupboards many of them with doors in no way different from other doors visitors would wish each other good night and disappear with their candles into cupboards staggering out backwards the next moment looking scared one poor gentleman this woman's husband told me having to go downstairs again for something he had forgotten and unable on his return to strike anything else but cupboards lost heart and finished up the night in a cupboard at breakfast time guests would hurry down and burst open cupboard doors with a cheery good morning when that woman was out nobody in that house ever knew where anything was and when she came home she herself only knew where it ought to have been yet once when one of those 29 cupboards had to be cleared out temporarily for repairs she never smiled her husband told me for more than three weeks and not till the workmen were out of the house and that cupboard in working order again she said it was so confusing having nowhere to put her things the average woman does not want a house in the ordinary sense of the word what she wants is something made by a genie you have found as you think the ideal house you show her the Adam's fireplace in the drawing room you tap the wainscoting of the hall with your umbrella oak you impress upon her you draw her attention to the view you tell her the local legend by fixing her head against the window pane she can see the tree on which the man was hanged you dwell upon the sundial you mention for a second time the Adam's fireplace it's all very nice she answers but where are the children going to sleep it is so disheartening if it isn't the children it's the water she wants water wants to know where it comes from you show her where it comes from what out of that nasty place she exclaims she is equally dissatisfied whether it be drawn from a well or whether it be water that has fallen from heaven and been stored in tanks she has no faith in nature's water a woman never believes that water can be good that does not come from a waterworks her idea appears to be that the company makes it fresh every morning from some old family recipe if you do succeed in reconciling her to the water then she feels sure that the chimneys smoke they look as if they smoked why as you tell her the chimneys are the best part of the house you take her outside and make her look at them they are genuine 16th century chimneys with carving on them they couldn't smoke they wouldn't do anything so inartistic she says she only hopes you are right and suggests cowls if they do after that she wants to see the kitchen where is the kitchen you don't know where it is you didn't bother about the kitchen of course you proceed to search for the kitchen when you find it she is worried because it is the opposite end of the house to the dining room you point out to her the advantage of being away from the smell of the cookie at that she gets personal tells you that you were the first to grumble when the dinner is cold and in her madness accuses the whole male sex of being impractical the mere sight of an empty house makes a woman fretful of course the stove is wrong the kitchen stove always is wrong you promise she shall have a new one six months later she will want the old one back again but it would be cruel to tell her this the promise of that new stove comforts her the woman never loses hope that one day it will come the all satisfying kitchen stove stove of her girly streams the question of the stove settled you imagine you have silenced all opposition at once she begins to talk about things that nobody but a woman or a sanitary inspector can talk about without blushing it calls for tact getting a woman into a new house she is nervous, suspicious I am glad my dear dick I answered that you have mentioned cupboards it is with cupboards that I am hoping to lure your mother the cupboards from her point of view will be the one bright spot there are 14 of them I am trusting the cupboards to tide me over many things I shall want you to come with me dick whenever your mother begins a sentence with but now to be practical dear I want you to murmur something about cupboards not irritatingly as if it had been pre arranged have a little gumption will there be room for a tennis court demanded dick an excellent tennis court already exists I informed him I have also purchased the adjoining paddock we shall be able to keep our own cow maybe we will breed horses we might have a croquet lawn suggested Robin we might easily have a croquet lawn I agreed on a full-sized lawn I believe Veronica might be taught to play there are natures that demand space on a full-sized lawn protected by a stout iron border last time might be wasted exploring the surrounding scenery for Veronica's lost ball no chance of a golf links anywhere in the neighborhood dear dick I am not so sure I answered barely a mile away there is a pretty piece of gorse land that appears to be no good to anyone I dare say for a reasonable offer I say when will this show be ready interrupted dick I proposed beginning the alterations at once I explained by luck there happens to be a gamekeeper's cottage vacant and within distance the agent is going to get me the use of it for a year a primitive little place but charmingly situate on the edge of a wood I shall furnish a couple of rooms and for part of every week I shall make a point of being down there super intending I have always been considered good at super intending my poor father used to say it was the only work I seemed to take an interest in by being on the spot to hurry everybody on I hope to have the show as you term it ready by the spring I shall never marry said Robin don't be so easily discouraged advised dick you are still young I don't ever want to get married continued Robin I should only quarrel with my husband if I did and dick will never do anything not with his head forgive me if I am dull I pleaded but what is the connection between this house your quarrels with your husband if you ever get one and dick's head by way of explanation Robin sprang to the ground and before he could stop her had flung her arms around dick's neck we can't help it dick dear she told him clever parents always have duffing children but will be of some use in the world after all the idea was that dick when he had finished failing in examinations should go out to Canada and start a farm taking Robin with him they would breed cattle and gallop over the prairies and camp out in the primeval forest and slide about on snowshoes and carry canoes on their backs and shoot rapids and stalk things so far as I could gather have a sort of everlasting buffalo bill show all to themselves how and when the farm work was done was not at all clear the little mother and myself were to end our days with them we were to sit about in the sun for a time and then pass peacefully away Robin shed a few tears at this point but regained her spirits thinking of Veronica who was to be lured out on a visit and married to some two-hearted yeoman which is not at present Veronica's ambition Veronica's conviction is that she would look well in a coronet her own idea is something in the dookal line Robin had talked for about ten minutes by the time she had done she had persuaded Dick that life in the backwoods of Canada had been his dream from infancy she is that sort of girl I tried talking reason but talking to Robin when she has got a notion in her head is like trying to fix a halt around a two-year-old cult this tumbled down six-roomed cottage was to be the saving of the family an ecstatic look transfigured Robin's face even as she spoke of it you might have fancy did a shrine Robin would do the cooking Robin would rise early and milk the cow and gather the morning egg we would lead the simple life learn to fend for ourselves it would be so good for Veronica the higher education could wait let the higher ideals have a chance Veronica would make the beds dust the rooms in the evening Veronica her little basket by her side she walked telling them things and Robin moved softly to and fro about her work the household fairy the little mother whenever strong enough would come to us we would hover around her tending her with loving hands the English farmer must know something in spite of all that is said Dick could arrange for lessons in practical farming she did not say it crudely but hinted that surrounded by example even I might come to take an interest in honest labour I might end by learning to do something useful Robin a talk I should say for a quarter of an hour by the time she had done it appeared to me rather a beautiful idea Dick's vacation had just commenced for the next three months there would be nothing else for him to do but to employ his own expressive phrase rock brown in any event it would be keeping him out of mischief Veronica's governess was leaving Veronica's governess generally does leave at the end of about a year I think sometimes of advertising for a lady without a conscience at the end of a year they explain to me that their conscience will not allow them to remain longer they do not feel they are earning their salary it is not that the child is not a dear child it is not that she is stupid simply it is as a German lady to whom Dick had been giving what he called finishing lessons in English once put it that she does not seem to be taking any her mother's idea is that it is sinking in perhaps if we allowed Veronica to lie fallow for a while something might show itself Robina speaking for herself held that a period of quiet usefulness away from the society of other silly girls and sillier boys would result in her becoming a sensible woman it is not often that Robina's yearnings take this direction to thwart them when they did seem wrong we had some difficulty with the little mother that these three babies of hers will ever be men and women capable of running a six room cottage appears to the little mother in the light of a fantastic dream I explained to her that I should be there at all events for two or three days in every week to give an eye to things even that did not content her she gave way eventually on Robina's solemn undertaking that she should be telegraphed for the first time Veronica coughed on Monday we packed a one horse van with what we deemed essential Dick and Robin erode their bicycles Veronica, supported by assorted bedding, made herself comfortable upon the tail board I followed down by train on the Wednesday afternoon End of Chapter 2 Chapter 3 of They and I by Jerome K. Jerome this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Deborah Lynn They and I by Jerome K. Jerome Chapter 3 it was the cow that won't me the first morning I did not know it was our cow not at the time I didn't know we had a cow I looked at my watch it was half past two I thought maybe she would go to sleep again but her idea was that the day had begun I went to the window the moon was at the full she was standing by the gate her head inside the garden I took at her anxiety was lest we might miss any of it her neck was stretched out straight her eyes towards the sky which gave her the appearance of a long-eared alligator I have never had much to do with cows I don't know how you talk to them I told her to be quiet and to lie down and made pretense to throw a boot at her it seemed to cheer her having an audience she added half a dozen extra notes I never knew before a cow had so much in her there was a thing one sometimes meets with in the suburbs or one used to I do not know whether it is still extant but when I was a boy it was quite common it has a hurdy-gurdy fixed to its waist and a drum strapped on behind a row of pipes hanging from its face and bells and clappers from most of its other joints it plays them all at once and smiles this cow reminded me of it with organ effects added she didn't smile there was that to be said in her favor I hoped that if I made believed to be asleep she would get discouraged so I closed the window ostentatiously and went back to bed but it only had the effect of putting her on her medal he did not care for that last I imagined her saying to herself I wasn't at my best there wasn't feeling enough in it she kept it out for about half an hour and then the gate against which I suppose she had been leaning gave way with the crash and I heard her gallop off across the field I was on the point of dozing off again when a pair of pigeons settled on the window sill and began to coo it is a pretty sound when you are in the mood for it I wrote a poem once a simple thing but instinct with longing while sitting under a tree and listening to the cooing of a pigeon but that was in the afternoon my only longing now was for a gun three times I got out of bed and shooed them away the third time I remained by the window till I had got it firmly into their heads that I really did not want them my behavior on the former two occasions they had evidently judged to be mere playfulness I had just got back to bed again when an owl began to screech that is another sound I used to think attractive so weird, so mysterious it is Swinburne I think who says that you never get the desired one and the time and the place all right together if the beloved one is with you but is the wrong place or at the wrong time and if the time and the place happen to be right then it is the party that is wrong the owl was all right I like owls the place was all right he had struck the wrong time that was all eleven o'clock at night when you can't see him and naturally feel that you want to is the proper time for an owl perched on the roof of a cow shed in the early dawn he looked silly he clung there flapping his wings and screeching at the top of his voice what it was he wanted I am sure I don't know and anyhow it didn't seem the way to get it he came to this conclusion himself at the end of twenty minutes and shut himself up and went home I thought I was going to have at last some peace when a corn-crate a creature upon whom nature has bestowed a song like to the tearing of calico sheets mingled with the sharpening of saws settled somewhere in the garden and set to work to praise its maker according to its lights a friend a poet who lives just off the strand and spends his evenings at the Garrett Club he writes occasional verse for the evening papers and talks about the silent country drowsy with the weight of langurs one of these times I'll lure him down for a Saturday to Monday and let him find out what the country really is let him hear it he is becoming too much of a dreamer it will do him good wake him up a bit the corn-crate after a while stopped quite suddenly with a jerk and for quite five minutes there was silence if this continues for another five I said to myself I'll be asleep I felt it coming over me I had hardly murmured the words when the cow turned up again I should say she had been somewhere and had had a drink she was in better voice than ever it occurred to me that this would be an opportunity to make a few notes on the sunrise the literary man is looked to for occasional description of the sunrise the earnest reader has heard about this sunrise thirsts for full particulars myself for purposes of observation I have generally chosen December or the early part of January but one never knows maybe one of these days I want a summer sunrise with birds and dube-sprinkled flowers it goes well with the rustic heroine the miller's daughter or the girl who brings up chickens and has dreams I met a brother author once at seven o'clock in the morning he looked half asleep and so disagreeable that I hesitated for a while to speak to him he is a man that as a rural breakfast at eleven but I summoned my courage and accosted him this is early for you, I said it's early for anyone but a born fool he answered what's the matter? I asked can't you sleep? can't I sleep? he retorted indignantly why I dare not sit down upon a seat I dare not lean up against the tree and I'd be asleep in half a second what's the idea? I persisted been reading smiles as self-help and the secret of success don't be absurd, I advised him you'll be going to Sunday school next and keeping a diary you have left it too late we don't reform at forty go home and go to bed I could see he was doing himself no good I'm going to bed, he answered I'm going to bed for a month when I finish this confounded novel that I'm on my advice, he said he laid his hand upon my shoulder never choose a colonial girl for your heroine at our age it is simple madness she's a fine girl, he continued and good, has a heart of gold she's wearing me to a shadow I wanted something fresh and unconventional I didn't grasp what it was going to do she's the girl that gets up early in the morning and rides bareback the horse, I mean of course, don't be so silly over in New South Wales it didn't matter I threw in the usual local color the eucalyptus tree and the kangaroo and let her ride it is now that she is over here in London that I wish I had never thought of her she gets up at five and wanders about the silent city that means of course that I have to get up at five in order to record her impressions I have walked six miles this morning first to St. Paul's Cathedral she likes it when there's nobody about you'd think it wasn't big enough for her to see if anybody else was in the street she thinks of it as of a mother watching over her sleeping children she's full of all that sort of thing and from there to Westminster Bridge she sits on the parapet and reads words worth till the policeman turns her off this is another of her favorite spots he indicated with a look of concentrated disgust the avenue where we were standing this is where she likes to finish up she comes here to listen to a black bird well you are through with it now I said to console him you've done it and it's over through with it he laughed bitterly I'm just beginning it there's the entire East End to be done yet she's got to meet a fellow there as big a crank as herself when walking isn't the worst she's going to have a horse you can guess what that means Hyde Park will be no good to her she'll find out Richmond in Ham Common I've got to describe the scenery and the mad joy of the thing can't you imagine it? I suggested to imagine all the enjoyable part of it he answered I must have a groundwork to go upon she's got to have feelings come to her upon this horse you can't enter into a rider's feelings when you've almost forgotten which side of the horse you get up I walked with him to the serpentine I had been wondering how it was he had grown stout so suddenly he had a bath towel around him underneath his coat it'll give me my death of cold I know it will he chattered while I'm lacing his boots can't you leave it till the summertime I suggested and take her to Ostend it wouldn't be unconventional he growled she wouldn't take an interest in it but do they allow ladies to bathe in the serpentine I persisted it won't be the serpentine he explained it's going to be the Thames at Greenwich but it must be the same sort of feeling she's got to tell them all about it during a lunch in Queensgate and shock them all that's all she does it for in my opinion he emerged a mottled blue I helped him into his clothes and he was fortunate enough to find an early cab the book appeared at Christmas the critics agree that the heroine was a delightful creation some of them said they would like to have known her remembering my poor friend it occurred to me that by going out now and making a few notes about the morning I might be saving myself trouble later on I slipped on a few things nothing elaborate put a notebook in my pocket opened the door and went down perhaps it would be more correct to say opened the door and was down it was my own fault I admit we had talked this thing over before going to bed and I myself had impressed upon Veronica the need for caution the architect of the country cottage does not waste space he dispenses with landings the bedroom door opens onto the top stair it does not do to walk out of your bedroom for the reason there is nothing outside to walk on I had said to Veronica pointing out this back to her now don't in the morning come bursting out of the room in your usual volcanic style because if you do there will be trouble as you perceive there is no landing the stairs commence at once they are steep and they lead down to a brick floor open the door quietly look where you are going and step carefully Dick had added his advice to mine I did that myself the first morning Dick had said straight out of the bedroom into the kitchen and I can tell you it hurts you be careful young and this cottage doesn't lend itself to Dash Robina had fallen down with a tray in her hand she said that never should she forget the horror of that moment when sitting on the kitchen floor she had cried to Dick her own voice sounding to her as if it came from somewhere quite far off is it broken tell me the truth is it broken anywhere and Dick had replied broken close to Adams what did you expect Robina had asked the question with reference to her head while Dick had thought she was alluding to the teapot in that moment had said Robina her whole life had passed before her she let Veronica feel the bump Veronica was disappointed with the bump having expected something bigger but had promised to be careful we had all agreed that if in spite of our warnings she forgot and came blundering down in the morning it was thinking of all this that as I lay upon the floor made me feel angry with everybody I hate people who can sleep through noises that wake me up why was I the only person in the house to be disturbed Dick's room was around the corner there was some excuse for him but Robina and Veronica's window looked straight down upon the cow if Robina and Veronica were not a couple of logs the cow would have aroused them we should have discussed the matter with the door ajar Robina would have said well you do be careful of the stairs Pa and I should have remembered the modern child appears to me to have no feeling for its parent I picked myself up and started for the door the cow continued bellowing steadily my whole anxiety was to get to her quickly and to hit her but the door took more finding than I could have believed possible the shutters were closed and the whole place was in pitch darkness the idea had been to furnish this cottage only with things that were absolutely necessary but the room appeared to me to be overcrowded there was a milking stool which is a thing made purposely heavy so that it may not be easily upset if I tumbled over it once I tumbled over it a dozen times I got hold of it at last and carried it about with me I thought I would use it to hit the cow that is when I had found the front door I knew it let out of the parlor but could not recollect its exact position I argued that if I kept along the wall I should be bound to come to it I found the wall and set off full of hope I suppose the explanation was that without knowing it I must have started with the door not the front door the other door leading into the kitchen I crept along carefully feeling my way and struck quite new things altogether things I had no recollection of and that hit me in fresh places I climbed over what I presumed to be a beer barrel and landed among bottles there were dozens upon dozens of them to get away from these bottles I had to leave the wall but I found it again as I thought and I felt along it for another half a dozen yards or so and then came again upon bottles the room appeared to be paved with bottles a little farther on I rolled over another beer barrel as a matter of fact it was the same beer barrel but I did not know this at the time it seemed to me that Robin had made up her mind to run a public house I found the milking stool again and started afresh and before I had gone a dozen steps was in among bottles again later on in the broad daylight it was easy enough to understand what had happened I had been carefully feeling my way round and round a screen I got so sick of these bottles and so tired of rolling over these everlasting beer barrels that I abandoned the wall and plunged boldly into space I had barely started when looking up I saw the sky above me a star was twinkling just above my head had I been wide awake and had the cows stopped bellowing for just one minute I should have guessed that somehow or another I had got into a chimney but as things were the wonder and the mystery of it all appalled me Alice's adventures in Wonderland would have appeared to me at that moment in the nature of a guide to travelers had a rocking horse or a lobster suddenly appeared to me I should have sat and talked to it and if it had not answered me I should have thought it was salty and been hurt I took a step forward and the star disappeared just as if somebody had blown it out I was not surprised in the least I was expecting anything to happen I found a door and it opened quite easily a wood was in front of me I couldn't see any cow anywhere but I still heard her it all seemed quite natural I would wander into the wood most likely I should meet her there and she would be smoking a pipe in all probability she would know some poetry with the fresh air my senses gradually came back to me and I began to understand why it was I could not see the cow the reason was that the house was between us by some mysterious process I had been discharged into the back garden I still had the milking stool in my hand but the cow no longer troubled me let her see if she could wake Veronica by merely bellowing outside the door it was more than I had ever been able to do I sat down on the stool and opened my notebook I headed the page sunrise in July observations and emotions and I wrote down at once that towards three o'clock a faint light is discernible and added that this light gets stronger as the time goes on it sounded footling even to myself but I had been reading a novel of the realistic school that had been greatly praised for its actuality there was a demand in some quarters for this class of observation I likewise made a note that the pigeon and the corncrate appeared to be among the earliest of nature's children to welcome the coming day and added that the screech owl may be heard perhaps at its best by anyone caring to rise for the purpose some quarter of an hour before the dawn that was all I could think of just then as regards emotions I did not seem to have any I lit a pipe and waited for the sun the sky in front of me was tinged with a faint pink but it flushed a deeper red I maintained that anyone not an expert would have said that was the portion of the horizon on which to keep one's eye I kept my eye upon it but no sun appeared I lit another pipe the sky in front of me was now a blaze of glory I scribbled a few lines likening the scattered clouds to brides blushing at the approach of the bride group that would have been all right if later on they hadn't begun to turn green it seemed the wrong color for a bride later on still they went yellow and that spoiled the simile past hope one cannot wax poetical about a bride who at the approach of the bride group turns first green and then yellow you can only feel sorry for her I waited some more the sky in front of me grew paler every moment I began to fear that something had happened to that sun if I hadn't known so much astronomy I should have said that he had changed his mind and gone back again I rose with the idea of seeing into things he had been up apparently for hours he had got up at the back of me it seemed to be nobody's fault I put my pipe into my pocket and strolled round to the front the cow was still there she was pleased to see me and started bellowing again I heard a sound of whistling it proceeded from a farmer's boy I hailed him and he climbed a gate and came to me across the field he was a cheerful youth he nodded to the cow and hoped she had had a good night he pronounced it na-it you know the cow, I said well, he explained we don't precisely move in the same set the sort of business relationship more like if you understand me something about this boy was worrying me he did not seem like a real farmer's boy but that nothing seemed quite real this morning my feeling was to let things go whose cow is it, I asked he stared at me I want to know to whom it belongs I said, I want to restore it to him excuse me, said the boy but where do you live he was making me cross where do I live, I retorted why in this cottage you don't think I've got up early and come from a distance to listen to this cow don't talk so much do you know whose cow it is or don't you it's your cow, said the boy it was my turn to steer but I haven't got a cow, I told him yes you have, he persisted you've got that cow she had stopped bellowing for a moment she was not the cow I felt I could ever take a pride in at some time or another quite recently she must have sat down in some mud how did I get her, I demanded the young lady explained the boy she came on to our place on Tuesday I began to see light an excitable young lady talks very fast, never waits for the answer with jolly fine eyes added the boy approvingly and she ordered a cow didn't seem to have strength enough to live another day without it any stipulation made concerning the price of the cow any what? the young lady with the eyes, did she think to ask the price of the cow no sorted details was entered into so far as I could hear, replied the boy they would not have been by Robin any hint let fall as to what the cow was wanted for the night he gives us to understand said the boy the fresh milk was her idea that surprised me, that was thoughtful of Robin and this is the cow I tout around last night I didn't knock at the door and tell you're about it because to be quite frank with you there wasn't anybody in what is she bellowing for the cow, said the boy it's only a theory of course but I should sigh from the look of her that she wanted to be milked but it started bellowing at half past two, I argued it doesn't expect to be milked at half past two, does it myself, said the boy I've given up looking for sense in cows in some unaccountable way this boy was hypnotizing me everything had suddenly become out of place the cow had suddenly become absurd the wood struck me as neglected there ought to have been notice boards about keep off the grass smoking strictly prohibited there wasn't a seat to be seen the cottage had surely got itself there by accident where was the street the birds were all out of their cages everything was upside down are you a real farmer's boy I asked him of course I am, he answered what do you take me for, a hardest in disguise it came to me what is your name Innery, Innery Hopkins where were you born Camden Tan here was a nice beginning to a rural life well place could be the country while this boy Hopkins was about he would have given to the garden of Eden the atmosphere of an outlying suburb do you want to earn an occasional shelling, I put it to him I'd rather it come regular said Hopkins, better for me character you dropped that cockney axe and learned Berkshire and I'll give you half a sovereign when you can talk it, I promised him don't for instance say ain't I explained to him, say bait don't say the young lady she come round to our place say the missy or coomed down or coomed and her says to the maester or says that's the sort of thing I want to surround myself with here when you informed me that the cow was mine you should have said boy or be your cow surely or be sure it's Berkshire demanded Hopkins you're confident about it there is a type that is by nature suspicious it may not be Berkshire pure and undefiled I admit it it is what in literature we term dialect it does for most places outside the 12 mile radius the object is to convey a feeling of rustic simplicity anyhow it isn't Camden Town I started him with a shelling then and there to encourage him he promised to come round in the evening for one or two books written by friends of mine that I reckoned would be of help to him and I returned to the cottage and set to work to Rouse Robina her tone was apologetic she had got the notion into her head that I had been calling her for quite a long time I explained that this was not the case how funny she answered I said to Veronica more than an hour ago I'm sure that's Pa calling us I suppose I must have been dreaming well don't dream anymore I suggested come down and see to this confounded cow of yours oh said Veronica has it come it has come I told her as a matter of fact it has been here some time it ought to have been milked four hours ago according to its own idea Robina said she would be down in a minute she was down in 25 which was sooner than I had expected she brought Veronica with her she said she would have been down sooner if she had not waited for Veronica it appeared that this was just precisely what Veronica had been telling her I was feeling irritable I had been up half a day and hadn't had my breakfast don't stand there arguing I told them for goodness sake let's get to work and milk this cow we shall have the poor creature dying on our hands if we're not careful Robina was wandering around the room across a milking stool anywhere have you Pa? asked Robina I have come across your milking stool I estimate some 13 times I told her I fetched it from where I had left it and gave it to her and we filed out in procession Veronica with a galvanized iron bucket bringing up the rear the problem that was forcing itself upon my mind was did Robina know how to milk a cow Robina I argued the idea once in her mind that she had ordered a cow clamoring for it as Hopkins had picturesly expressed it as though she had not strength to live another day without a cow her next proceeding would have been to buy a milking stool it was a tasteful milking stool this one she had selected ornamented with the rough drawing of a cow in poker work a little too solid for my taste but one that I should say would wear well the pale she had not as yet had time and took it a temporary make shift when Robina had leisure she would go into the town and purchase something at an art store that to complete the scheme she would have done well to have taken a few practical lessons in milking would come to her as an inspiration with the arrival of the cow I noticed that Robina's steps as we approached the cow were less elastic just outside the cow Robina halted I suppose said Robina there's only one way of milking a cow there may be fancy ways I answered necessary to you if later on you think of entering a competition this morning seeing we are late I shouldn't worry too much about style if I were you this morning I should adopt the ordinary unimaginative method and aim only at results Robina sat down and placed her bucket underneath the cow I suppose said Robina it doesn't matter which one I begin with perfectly plain she hadn't the least notion how to milk a cow I told her so adding comments now and then a little fatherly talk does good as a rule I have to work myself up for these occasions this morning I was feeling fairly fit things had conspired to this end I put before Robina the aims and privileges of the household fairy as they appeared not to her but to me I also confided to Veronica the result of many weeks reflections concerning her and her behavior I also told them both what I thought about Dick I do this sort of thing once every six months it has an excellent effect for about three days Robina wiped away her tears and seized the first one that came to her hand the cow without saying a word kicked over the empty bucket and walked away disgust expressed in every hair of her body Robina crying quietly followed her by patting her on her neck and letting her wipe her nose upon my coat which seemed to comfort her I persuaded her to keep still while Robina worked for ten minutes at high pressure the result was about a glass full and a half the cow's capacity to all appearance being by this time some five or six gallons Robina broke down and acknowledged she had been a wicked girl if the cow died so she said she should never forgive herself Veronica at this burst into tears also and the cow whether moved to fresh by her own troubles or by theirs and the cow's ability to swallow I was fortunately able to find an elderly laborer smoking a pipe and eating bacon underneath a tree and with him I bargained that for a shilling a day he should milk the cow to help further notice we left him busy and returned to the cottage Dick met us at the door with a cheery good morning he wanted to know if we had heard the storm he also wanted to know when breakfast would be ready he had boiled the kettle and made the tea and fried the bacon while Veronica was laying the table but I thought Robina said that if he dared to mention the word household fairy she would box his ears and go straight up to bed and leave everybody to do everything she said she meant it Dick has one virtue it is philosophy come on young and said Dick to Veronica trouble is good for us all some of us said Veronica we sat down to breakfast at 8.30 end of chapter 3 chapter 4 of they and I by Jerome K. Jerome this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Deborah Lynn they and I by Jerome K. Jerome chapter 4 our architect arrived on Friday afternoon or rather his assistant I felt from the first I was going to like him he is shy and that of course makes him appear awkward but as I explained to Robina it is the shy young men who generally speaking turn out best few men could have been more painfully shy up to 25 than myself Robina said that was different in the case of an author it did not matter Robina's attitude towards the literary profession would not annoy me so much were it not typical to be a literary man is in Robina's opinion to be a licensed idiot it was only a week or two ago that I overheard from my study window a conversation between Veronica and Robina upon this very point Veronica's I had caught something lying on the grass I could not myself see what it was in consequence of an intervening laurel bush Veronica stooped down and examined it with care the next instant uttering a piercing whoop she leapt into the air then clapping her hands began to dance her face was radiant with a holy joy Robina passing near stopped and demanded explanation pos tennis racket shouted Veronica Veronica never sees the use of talking in an ordinary tone of voice when shouting will do just as well she continued clapping her hands and taking little bounds into the air well what are you going on like that for asked Robina it has a bitch you has it it's been all night in the wet bring it in you wicked child said Robina severely it's nothing to be pleased about yes it is explained Veronica I thought at first it was mine oh wouldn't there have been a talk about it if it had been oh my wouldn't there have been a row she settled down to a steady rhythmic dance suggestive of a Greek chorus expressing satisfaction with the gods Robina seized her by the shoulders and shook her back into herself if it had been yours said Robina you would deserve to have been set to bed well then why don't he go to bed argued Veronica Robina took her by the arm and walked her up and down just underneath my window I listened because the conversation interested me Pa as I am always explaining to you said Robina is a literary man he cannot help forgetting things well I can't help forgetting things insisted Veronica you find it hard explained Robina kindly but if you keep on trying you will succeed you will get more thoughtful I used to be forgetful and do foolish things once when I was a little girl good thing for us if we were all literary suggested Veronica if we were all literary Robina corrected her but you see we are not you and I and Dick we are just ordinary mortals we must try and think and be sensible in the same way when Pa gets excited and raves it's the literary temperament he can't help it can't you help doing anything when you are literary ask Veronica there's a good deal you can't help answered Robina it isn't fair to judge them by the ordinary standard they drifted towards the kitchen garden it was the time of strawberries and the remainder of the talk I lost I noticed that for some days afterwards Veronica displayed a tendency to shutting herself up in the school room with a copy book appearing from my desk one in particular that had suited me I determined if possible to recover a subtle instinct guided me to Veronica's sanctum I found her thoughtfully sucking it she explained to me that she was writing a little play you get things from your father don't you she inquired of me you do I admitted but you ought not to take them without asking I am always telling you of it that pencil is the only one I can write with I didn't mean the pencil explained Veronica I was wondering if I had got your literary temper it is puzzling when you come to think of it this estimate accorded by the general public to the literature it stands to reason that the man who writes books explaining everything and putting everybody right must be himself an exceptionally clever man else how could he do it the thing is pure logic yet to listen to Robina and her like you might think we had not sense enough to run ourselves as the saying is a stone running the universe if I would let her Robina would sit and give me information by the hour the ordinary girl Robina will begin with the air of a university extension lecturer it is so exasperating as if I did not know all there is to be known about girls while it is my business I point this out to Robina yes I know Robina will answer sweetly but I was meeting the real girl it would make not the slightest difference where I even quite class literary man Robina thinks I am she is a dear child where I Shakespeare himself and could I in consequence say to her me thinks child the creator of Ophelia and Juliet and Rosamund and Beatrice must surely know something about girls Robina would still make answer of course everybody knows how clever you are but I was thinking for the moment of real girls I wonder to myself sometimes is literature to the general reader ever anything more than a fairy tale we write with our hearts blood as we put it we ask our conscience is it right thus to lay bare the secrets of our souls the general reader does not grasp that we are writing with our hearts blood to him it is just ink he does not believe we are laying bare the secrets of our souls he takes it we are just pretending once upon a time there lived a girl named Angelina who loved to party by the name of Edwin he imagines he the general reader when we tell him all the wonderful thoughts that were inside Angelina that it was we who put them there he does not know he will not try to understand that Angelina is in reality more real than his Miss Jones who rides up every morning in the bus with him and has a pretty knack of rendering conversation about the weather novel and suggestive as a boy I once some popularity among my schoolmates as a teller of stories one afternoon to a small collection with whom I was homing across regents park I told the story of a beautiful princess but she was not the ordinary princess she would not behave as a princess should I could not help it the others heard only my voice but I was listening to the wind she thought she loved the prince until he had wounded the dragon unto death and it carried her away into the wood then while the prince lay sleeping she heard the dragon calling to her in its pain and crept back to where it laid bleeding and put her arms about its scaly neck and kissed it and that healed it I was hoping myself that at this point it would turn into a prince itself but it didn't it just remained a dragon so the wind said yet the princess loved it it wasn't half a bad dragon when you knew it I could not tell them what became of the prince the wind didn't seem to care a hang about the prince myself I liked the story but Hocker who was a fifth form boy voicing our little public said it was raw so far and that I had got to hurry up and finish things rightly but that is all I told them no it isn't said Hocker she's got to marry the prince in the end he'll have to kill the dragon again and mind he does it properly this time whoever heard of a princess leaving a prince for a dragon but she wasn't the ordinary sort of princess I argued then she's got to be criticized Hocker don't you give yourself so many errors you make her marry the prince and be slippy about it catch the 415 from chalk farm station but she didn't I persisted obstinately she married the dragon and lived happily ever afterwards Hocker adopted sterner measures he seized my arm and twisted it behind me she married who demanded Hocker grammar was not Hocker's strong point the dragon I growled she married who repeated Hocker the dragon I whined she married who for the third time urged Hocker Hocker was strong and the tears were forcing themselves into my eyes in spite of me so the princess in return for healing the dragon made it promise to reform it went back with her to the prince and made itself generally useful to both of them for the rest of the tour and the prince took the princess home with him and married her and the dragon died and was buried the others liked the story better the little crowd becomes the reading public and Hocker grows into an editor he twists my arm in other ways some are brave so the crowd kicks them and scurries off to catch the 415 but most of us I fear are slaves to Hocker then after a while the wind grows sulky and will not tell us stories anymore and we have to make them up out of our own heads perhaps it is just as well what were doors and windows made for but to keep out the wind he is a dangerous fellow this wandering wind he leads me astray I was talking about our architect he made a bad start so far as robinna was concerned by coming in at the back door robinna in a big apron was washing up he apologized for having blundered into the kitchen and offered to go out again and work round to the front robinna replied with unnecessary severity as I thought that an architect if anyone might have known the difference between the right side of a house and the wrong but presumed that youth and inexperience could always be pleaded as excuse for stupidity and can I myself see why robinna should have been so much annoyed labor as robinna had been explaining to Veronica only a few hours before exalts a woman in olden days ladies the highest in the land were proud not ashamed of their ability to perform domestic duties this later on I pointed out to robinna her answer was that in olden days you didn't have chits of boys going about calling themselves architects and opening back doors without knocking or if they did knock knocking so that nobody on earth could hear them robinna wiped her hands on the towel behind the door and brought him into the front room where she announced him coldly as the young man from the architect's office he explained but quite modestly that he was not exactly messe's sprites young man but an architect himself a junior member of the firm to make it clear he produced his card which was that of Mr. Archibald T. Butte F-R-I-B-A practically speaking all this was unnecessary through the open door I had of course heard every word and old sprite had told me of his intention to send me one of his most promising assistants who would be able to devote himself entirely to my work I put matters right by introducing him formally to robinna they bowed to one another rather stiffly robinna said that if he would excuse her she would return to her work and he answered charmed and also that he didn't mean it as I have tried to get it into robinna's head the young fellow was confused he had meant it was self-evident that he was charmed at being introduced to her not at her desire to return to the kitchen but robinna appears to have taken a dislike to him I gave him a cigar and we started for the house it lies just a mile from this cottage the other side of the wood one excellent trade in him I soon discovered he is intelligent without knowing everything I confess it to my shame but the young man who knows everything has come to pawl upon me according to emerson this is a proof of my own intellectual feebleness the strong man intellectually cultivates the society of his superiors he wants to get on he wants to learn things if I loved knowledge as one should I would have no one but young man about me there was a friend of dick's a gentleman from rugby at one time he had hopes of me I felt he had but he was too impatient he tried to bring me on too quickly you must take into consideration natural capacity after listening to him for an hour or two my mind would wander I could not help it the careless laughter of uninformed middle-aged gentlemen and ladies would creep to me from the croquet lawn or from the billiard room to be among them sometimes I would battle with my lower nature what did they know? what could they tell me? more often I would succumb there were occasions when I used to get up and go away from him quite suddenly I talked with young butte during our walk about domestic architecture in general he said he should describe the present tendency in domestic architecture as towards corners the desire of the British public was to go into a corner and live for whose husband his firm had lately built a house in Surrey had propounded to him a problem in connection with this point she agreed it was a charming house no house in Surrey had more corners than that was saying much but she could not see how for the future she was going to bring up her children she was a humanely minded lady hitherto she had punished them when needful by putting them in the corner the shame of it had always exercised upon them a salutary effect in a new house corners are reckoned as the prime parts of every room it is the honored guest who is sent into the corner the father has a corner sacred to himself with high up above his head a complicated cupboard wherein with the help of a stepladder he may keep his pipes and his tobacco and thus by slow degrees cure himself of the habit of smoking the mother likewise has her corner where stands her spinning wheel in case the idea comes to her to weave sheets and under clothing it also has a bookshelf supporting 13 volumes arranged in a sloping position to look natural the last one maintained at its angle of 45 degrees by a ginger jar in old blue nankine you are not supposed to touch them because that would disarrange them besides what it's fooling about you might upset the ginger jar the consequence of all this is the corner is no longer disgraceful the parent can no more say to the erring child you wicked boy the cozy corner this very minute in the house of the future the place of punishment will have to be the middle of the room the angry mother will exclaim don't you answer me you saucy minx you go straight into the middle of the room and don't you dare to come out of it till I tell you the difficulty with the artistic house is finding the right people to put into it in the picture the artistic room never has anybody in it there is a strip of art embroidery upon the table together with a bowl of roses upon the ancient high-backed satis lies an item of fancy work unfinished just as she left it in the study an open book faced downwards has been left on a chair it is the last book he was reading it has never been disturbed a pipe of quaint design is culled upon the lintel of the lattice window no one will ever smoke that pipe again it must have been difficult to smoke at any time the side of the artistic room as depicted in the furniture catalog always brings tears to my eyes people once inhabited these rooms read there those old volumes bound in vellum smoked or tried to smoke those impracticable pipes white hands that someone maybe had loved to kiss once fluttered among the folds of these unfinished antemacassers or Berlin Woolworth slippers and went away leaving the things about one takes it that the people who once occupied these artistic rooms are now all dead this was their dining room they sat on those artistic chairs they could hardly have used the dinner service set out upon the Elizabethan dresser because that would have left the dresser bare one assumes they had an extra service for use or else that they took their meals in the kitchen the entrance hall is a singularly chased apartment there is no necessity for a doormat people with muddy boots it is to be presumed were sent round to the back a riding cloak the relic apparently of a highwayman hangs behind the door it is the sort of cloak you would expect to find there a decorative cloak an umbrella or a waterproof cape would be fatal to the whole effect now and again the illustrator of the artistic room will permit a young girl to come and sit there but she has to be a very carefully selected girl to begin with she has got to look in dress as though she had been born at least 300 years ago she has got to have that sort of clothes and she has got to have her hair done just that way she has got to look sad a cheerful girl in the artistic room would jar one's artistic sense one imagines the artist consulting with the proud possessor of the house you haven't got such a thing as a miserable daughter have you some fairly good looking girl who has been crossed in love or is misunderstood because if so you might dress her up in something out of the local museum or along a little thing like that gives versatility to a design she must not touch anything all she may do is to read a book not really read it that would suggest too much life and movement she sits with the book in her lap and gazes into the fire if it happens to be the dining room or out of the window if it happens to be a morning room and the architect wishes to call attention to the window seat nothing of the male species as far as I have been able to ascertain that I have ever entered these rooms I once thought I had found a man who had been allowed into his own smoking den but on closer examination it turned out he was only a portrait sometimes one is given vistas doors stand open and you can see right away through the nook into the garden there was never a living soul about the place the whole family has been sent out for a walk or locked up in the cellars this strikes you as odd until you come to think the matter out the modern man and woman is not artistic I am not artistic not what I call really artistic I don't go well with goblin tapestry and warming pans I feel I don't robinna is not artistic not in that sense I tried her once with a harpsichord I picked up cheap in water street and a reproduction of a roman stool the thing was an utter failure a cottage piano with a photo frame and a fern upon what the soul cries out for in connection with robinna dick is not artistic dick does not go with peacocks feathers and guitars I can see dick with a single peacocks feather at st. giles's fair when the bulldogs are not looking but the decorative panel of peacocks feathers is two months for him I can imagine him with a banjo but a guitar decorated with pink ribbons to begin with he is not dressed for it unless a family be prepared to make themselves up as troubadours or cavaliers and to talk blank verse I don't see how they can expect to be happy living in these fifteenth century houses the modern family the old man in baggy trousers in a frock coat he could not button if he tried to the mother of figure distinctly victorian the boys in flannel suits and collars up to their ears the girls in motor caps nourishing congress in these medieval dwellings as a party of cooks, tourists and old beer in the streets of Pompeii the designer of the artistic home is right in keeping to still life in the artistic home to paraphrase Dr. Watts every prospect pleases and only man is in artistic in the picture the artistic bedroom in apple green the bed instead of cherry wood with a touch of turkey red throughout the draperies is charming it need hardly be said the bed is empty in that cherry wood bed I don't care how artistic they may think themselves the charm would be gone the really artistic party one supposes has a little room behind where he sleeps and dresses himself he peeps in at the door of this artistic bedroom maybe occasionally enters to change the roses imagine the artistic nursery five minutes after the real child had been let loose in it I know a lady who once spent hundreds of pounds on an artistic nursery she showed it to her friends with pride the children were allowed in there on Sunday afternoons I did an equally silly thing myself not long ago lured by a furniture catalog I started robinna in a boudoir I gave it to her as a birthday present we have both regretted it ever since robinna reckons she could have had a bicycle a diamond bracelet and a mandolin and I should have saved money I did the thing well I told the furniture people I wanted it just as it stood in the picture design for bedroom in boudoir combined suitable for young girl antique with sparrow blue hangings we had everything the antique fire arrangements that a vestal virgin might possibly have understood the candlesticks that were pictures in themselves until we tried to put candles in them the bookcase and writing desk combined that wasn't big enough to write on and out of which it was impossible to get a book until you had abandoned the idea of writing in had closed the cover the enclosed wash stand that shut down and looked like an old bureau with the inevitable bowl of flowers upon it that had to be taken off and put on the floor whenever you wanted to use the thing as a wash stand the toilet table with its cutting little glass just big enough to see your nose in the bedstead hidden away behind the thinking corner where the girl couldn't get at it to make it a prettier room you could not have imagined till robinna started sleeping in it I think she tried girlfriends of hers to whom she had bragged about it would drop in and ask to be allowed to see it robinna would say wait a minute and would run up and slam the door and we would hear her for the next half hour or so rushing around opening and shutting drawers and dragging things about by the time it was a boudoir again she was exhausted and irritable she wants now to give it up to Veronica but Veronica objects to the position the bathroom in my study her idea is a room more removed where she would be able to shut herself in and do her work as she explains without fear of interruption young bute told me that a friend of his a well to do young fellow who lived in piccadilly had had the whim to make his flat the reproduction of a roman villa there were of course no fires the rooms were warmed by hot air from the kitchen they had a cheerless aspect on a november afternoon nobody knew exactly where to sit light was obtained in the evening from grecian lamps which made it easy to understand why the ancient Athenians as a rule went to bed early you dined sprawling on a couch this was no doubt practicable when you took your plate into your hand and fed yourself with your fingers but with a knife and fork the meal had all the advantages of a hot picnic you did not feel luxurious or even wicked you only felt nervous about your clothes the thing lacked completeness he could not expect his friends to come to him in roman togas and even his own man declined firmly to wear the costume of a roman slave the compromise was unsatisfactory even from the purely pictorial point of view you cannot be a roman patrician of the time of Antoninus when you happen to live in piccadilly at the opening of the 20th century all you can do is to make your friends uncomfortable and spoil their dinner for them young bute said that so far as he was concerned he would always rather have spent the evening with his little nephews and nieces playing at horses it seemed to him a more sensible game young bute said that speaking as an architect he of course admired the ancient masterpieces of his art he admired the erythium at Athens but spurgeon's tabernacle and the old cant road built upon the same model would have irritated him for a grecian temple you wanted grecian skies and grecian girls he said that even as it was Westminster Abbey in the season was an eyesore to him the dean inquire in their white surpluses past muster but the congregation in his black frock coats and Paris hats gave him the same sense of incongruity as would a banquet of barefooted friars in the dining hall of the canon street hotel it struck me there was sense in what he said I decided not to mention my idea of carving 1553 above the front door he said he could not understand this passion of the modern house builder for playing at being a crusader or a canterbury pilgrim a retired Berlin boot maker of his acquaintance had built himself a miniature roman castle near heidelberg they played billiards in the dungeon and let off fireworks on the Kaiser's birthday from the roof of the watchtower another acquaintance of his a draper at halloway had built himself a moated grange the moat was supplied from the waterworks under special arrangement and all the electric lights were imitation candles he had done the thing thoroughly he had even designed a haunted chamber in blue and a miniature chapel which he used as a telephone closet young butte had been invited down there for the shooting in the autumn he said he could not be sure whether he was doing right or wrong but his intention was to provide himself with a bow and arrows a change was coming over this young man we had talked on other subjects and he had been shy and deferential on this matter of bricks and mortar he spoke as one explaining things I ventured to say a few words in favor of the Tudor House the Tudor House he argued was a fit and proper residence for the Tudor citizen for the man whose wife rode behind him on a packed saddle who conducted his correspondence by the help of a moss trooper the Tudor fireplace was designed for folks to whom coal was unknown a house that looked ridiculous with a motor car before the door where the electric bell jarred upon one's sense of fitness every time one heard it was out of date he maintained for you sir he continued a twentieth century writer to build yourself a Tudor House would be as absurd as for Ben Johnson to have planned himself a Norman castle with a torture chamber underneath the wine cellar and the fireplace in the middle of the dining hall his fellow cronies of the mermaid would have thought him stark-steering mad there was reason in what he was saying I decided not to mention my idea of altering the chimneys and fixing up imitation gables especially as young Butte seemed pleased with the house which by this time we had reached now that is a good house said young Butte that is a house where a man in a frock coat and trousers can sit down and not feel himself a stranger from another age it was built for a man who wore a frock coat and trousers on weekdays maybe gators and a shooting coat you can enjoy a game of billiards in that house without the feeling that comes to you when playing tennis in the shadow of the pyramids we entered and I put before him my notions such of them as I felt he would approve we were some time about the business and when we looked at our watches young Butte's last train to town had gone there still remained much to talk about and I suggested he should return with me to the cottage and take his luck I could sleep with Dick and he could have my room I told him about the cow but he said he was a practice sleeper and would be delighted if I could lend him a night's shirt and if I thought Miss Robina would not be put out I assured him that it would be a good thing for Robina the unexpected guest would be a useful lesson to her in housekeeping besides as I pointed out to him it didn't really matter even if Robina were put out not to you sir perhaps he answered with a smile it is not with you that she will be indignant that will be all right my boy I told him I take all responsibility and I shall get all the blame he laughed but as I pointed out to him it really didn't matter whom Robina blamed we talked about women generally on our way back I told him impressing upon him there was no need for it to go farther that I personally had come to the conclusion that the best way to deal with women was to treat them all as children he agreed it might be a good method but wanted to know what you did when they treated you as a child they are almost a delightful couple they have been married nearly twenty years and both will assure you that an angry word has never passed between them he calls her his little one although she must be quite six inches taller than himself and is never tired of patting her hand or pinching her ear they asked her once in the drawing room so the little mother tells me her recipe for domestic bliss she said the mistake most women made was taking men too seriously they are just overgrown children that's all they are poor dears, she laughed there are two kinds of love there is the love that kneels and looks upward and the love that looks down and pats for durability I am prepared to back the ladder the architect had died out of young butte he was again a shy young man during our walk back to the cottage my hand was on the latch when he stayed me isn't this the back door again, sir he inquired it was the back door he had not noticed it hadn't we better go round to the front, sir don't you think, he said it doesn't matter, I began but he had disappeared so I followed him and we entered by the front robinna was standing by the table peeling potatoes I had brought Mr. Butte back with me I explained he is going to stop the night robinna said if ever I go to live in a cottage again it will have one door she took her potatoes with her I do hope she isn't put out, said young butte don't worry yourself I comforted him, of course she isn't put out besides I don't care if she is she's got to get used to being put out it's part of the lesson of life I took him upstairs, meaning to show him his bedroom and take my own things out of it the doors of the two bedrooms were opposite one another I made a mistake and opened the wrong door robinna, still peeling potatoes, was sitting on the bed I explained we had made a mistake robinna said it was of no consequence whatever and taking the potatoes with her went downstairs again looking out of the window I saw her making towards the wood she was taking the potatoes with her I do wish we hadn't opened the door of the wrong room, grown young butte what a worrying chap you are I said to him look at the thing from the humorous point of view that's funny when you come to think of it wherever the poor girl goes trying to peel her potatoes in peace and quietness we burst in upon her what we ought to do now is to take a walk in the wood it is a pretty wood we might say we had come to pick wildflowers but I could not persuade him he said he had letters to write and if I would allow him would remain in his room till dinner was ready Dick and Veronica came in a little later Dick had been to see Mr. St. Leonard to arrange about lessons in farming he said he thought I should like the old man who wasn't a bit like a farmer he had brought Veronica back in one of her good moods she having met there and fallen in love with a donkey Dick confided to me that without committing himself he had hinted to Veronica that if she would remain good for quite a long while I might be induced to buy it for her it was a sturdy little animal and could be made useful anyhow it would give Veronica an object in life something to strive for which was just what she wanted he is a thoughtful lad at times as Dick he was more successful than I had hoped for Robinner gave us melon as a hors d'oeuvre followed by sardines in a fowl with potatoes and vegetable marrow her cooking surprised me I had warned young Butte that it might be necessary to regard this dinner rather as a joke than as an evening meal and was prepared myself to extract amusement from it rather than nourishment my disappointment was agreeable one can always imagine a comic dinner I dined once with a newly married couple who had just returned from their honeymoon we ought to have sat down at eight o'clock we sat down instead at half past ten the cook had started drinking in the morning by seven o'clock she was speechless the wife giving up hope at a quarter to eight had cooked the dinner herself the other guests were sympathized with but all I got was congratulation he'll write something so funny about this dinner they said you might have thought the cook had got drunk on purpose to oblige me I have never been able to write anything funny about that dinner it depresses me to this day merely thinking of it we finished up with a cold trifle and some excellent coffee that Robin had brewed over a lamp on the table while Dick and Veronica cleared away it was one of the jolliest little dinners I have ever eaten and if Robin has figures that are to be trusted cost exactly six and four pence for the five of us there being no servants about we talked freely and enjoyed ourselves I began once at a dinner to tell a good story about a scotchman when my host silenced me with a look he is a kindly man and had heard the story before he explained to me afterwards over the walnuts that his parlor made with scotch and rather touchy the talk fell into the discussion of home rule and again our host silenced us it seemed his butler was an Irishman and a violent pernellite some people can talk as though servants were mere machines but to me they are human beings and their presence hampers me I know my guests have not heard the story before and from one's own flesh and blood one expects a certain amount of sacrifice but I feel so sorry for the housemaid who was waiting she must have heard it a dozen times I really cannot inflict it upon her again after dinner we pushed the table into a corner and Dick extracted a sort of waltz from Robin as Mandolin it is years since I danced but Veronica said she would rather dance with me any day than with some of the lumps you were given to drag round by the dancing mistress I have half a mind to take it up again after all a man is only as old as he feels young Butte it turned out was a capital dancer and could even reverse which in a room 14 feet square is of advantage Robin confided to me after he was gone that while he was dancing she could just tolerate him for rhyme or reason Robin has objection to him he is not handsome but he is good looking as boys go and has a pleasant smile Robin says it is his smile that maddens her Dick agrees with me that there is sense in him and Veronica not given to loose praise considers his performance of a red Indian both dead and alive the finest piece of acting she has ever encountered we wound up the evening with a little singing the extent of Dick's repertoire surprised me evidently he has not been so idle at Cambridge as it seemed young Butte has a baritone voice of some richness we remembered at quarter past eleven that Veronica ought to have gone to bed at eight we were all of us surprised at the lateness of the hour why can't we always live in a cottage and do just as we like I'm sure it's much jollier Veronica put it to me as I kissed her good night because we are idiots most of us Veronica I answered End of chapter four