John Ingerfield

John Ingerfield and Other
Stories, by Jerome

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Jerome K. Jerome
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Title: John Ingerfield and Other Stories
Author: Jerome K. Jerome

Release Date: May 1, 2007 [eBook #2525]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOHN
INGERFIELD AND OTHER STORIES***

Transcribed from the 1912 Frank Palmer edition by David Price, email
[email protected]

JOHN INGERFIELD AND OTHER STORIES
Contents
To the Gentle Reader
In Remembrance of John Ingerfield and of Anne, his Wife
The Woman of the Saeter
Variety Patter
Silhouettes
The Lease of the "Cross Keys"

TO THE GENTLE READER; also TO THE GENTLE CRITIC.
Once upon a time, I wrote a little story of a woman who was crushed to
death by a python. A day or two after its publication, a friend stopped
me in the street. "Charming little story of yours," he said, "that about
the woman and the snake; but it's not as funny as some of your things!"
The next week, a newspaper, referring to the tale, remarked, "We have
heard the incident related before with infinitely greater humour."
With this--and many similar experiences--in mind, I wish distinctly to
state that "John Ingerfield," "The Woman of the Saeter," and
"Silhouettes," are not intended to be amusing. The two other
items--"Variety Patter," and "The Lease of the Cross Keys"--I give over
to the critics of the new humour to rend as they will; but "John
Ingerfield," "The Woman of the Saeter," and "Silhouettes," I repeat, I
should be glad if they would judge from some other standpoint than
that of humour, new or old.

IN REMEMBRANCE OF JOHN INGERFIELD, AND OF ANNE,
HIS WIFE A STORY OF OLD LONDON, IN TWO CHAPTERS
CHAPTER I.
If you take the Underground Railway to Whitechapel Road (the East
station), and from there take one of the yellow tramcars that start from
that point, and go down the Commercial Road, past the George, in front
of which starts--or used to stand--a high flagstaff, at the base of which
sits--or used to sit--an elderly female purveyor of pigs' trotters at
three-ha'pence apiece, until you come to where a railway arch crosses
the road obliquely, and there get down and turn to the right up a narrow,
noisy street leading to the river, and then to the right again up a still
narrower street, which you may know by its having a public-house at
one corner (as is in the nature of things) and a marine store-dealer's at
the other, outside which strangely stiff and unaccommodating garments
of gigantic size flutter ghost-like in the wind, you will come to a dingy
railed-in churchyard, surrounded on all sides by cheerless,
many-peopled houses. Sad-looking little old houses they are, in spite of
the tumult of life about their ever open doors. They and the ancient
church in their midst seem weary of the ceaseless jangle around them.
Perhaps, standing there for so many years, listening to the long silence
of the dead, the fretful voices of the living sound foolish in their ears.
Peering through the railings on the side nearest the river, you will see
beneath the shadow of the soot-grimed church's soot-grimed
porch--that is, if the sun happen, by rare chance, to be strong enough to
cast any shadow at all in that region of grey light--a curiously high and
narrow headstone that once was white and straight, not tottering and
bent with age as it is now. There is upon this stone a carving in
bas-relief, as you will see for yourself if you will make your way to it
through the gateway on the opposite side of the square. It represents, so
far as can be made out, for it is much worn by time and dirt, a figure
lying on the ground with another figure bending over it, while at a little
distance stands a third object. But this last is so indistinct that it might
be almost anything, from an angel to a post.

And below the carving are the words (already half obliterated) that I
have used for the title of this story.
Should you ever wander of a Sunday morning within sound of the
cracked bell that calls a few habit-bound, old-fashioned folk to worship
within those damp-stained walls, and drop into talk with the old men
who on such days sometimes sit, each in his brass-buttoned long brown
coat, upon the low stone coping underneath those broken railings, you
might hear this tale from