Tommy and Co. | Page 3

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Tommy and Co.
by Jerome K. Jerome

STORY THE FIRST--Peter Hope plans his Prospectus

"Come in!" said Peter Hope.
Peter Hope was tall and thin, clean-shaven but for a pair of side
whiskers close-cropped and terminating just below the ear, with hair of
the kind referred to by sympathetic barbers as "getting a little thin on
the top, sir," but arranged with economy, that everywhere is poverty's
true helpmate. About Mr. Peter Hope's linen, which was white though
somewhat frayed, there was a self- assertiveness that invariably
arrested the attention of even the most casual observer. Decidedly there
was too much of it--its ostentation aided and abetted by the retiring
nature of the cut- away coat, whose chief aim clearly was to slip off and
disappear behind its owner's back. "I'm a poor old thing," it seemed to
say. "I don't shine--or, rather, I shine too much among these up-to-date
young modes. I only hamper you. You would be much more
comfortable without me." To persuade it to accompany him, its
proprietor had to employ force, keeping fastened the lowest of its three
buttons. At every step, it struggled for its liberty. Another characteristic
of Peter's, linking him to the past, was his black silk cravat, secured by
a couple of gold pins chained together. Watching him as he now sat
writing, his long legs encased in tightly strapped grey trousering,
crossed beneath the table, the lamplight falling on his

fresh-complexioned face, upon the shapely hand that steadied the
half-written sheet, a stranger might have rubbed his eyes, wondering by
what hallucination he thus found himself in presence seemingly of
some young beau belonging to the early 'forties; but looking closer,
would have seen the many wrinkles.
"Come in!" repeated Mr. Peter Hope, raising his voice, but not his eyes.
The door opened, and a small, white face, out of which gleamed a pair
of bright, black eyes, was thrust sideways into the room.
"Come in!" repeated Mr. Peter Hope for the third time. "Who is it?"
A hand not over clean, grasping a greasy cloth cap, appeared below the
face.
"Not ready yet," said Mr. Hope. "Sit down and wait."
The door opened wider, and the whole of the figure slid in and, closing
the door behind it, sat itself down upon the extreme edge of the chair
nearest.
"Which are you--Central News or Courier?" demanded Mr. Peter Hope,
but without looking up from his work.
The bright, black eyes, which had just commenced an examination of
the room by a careful scrutiny of the smoke-grimed ceiling, descended
and fixed themselves upon the one clearly defined bald patch upon his
head that, had he been aware of it, would have troubled Mr. Peter Hope.
But the full, red lips beneath the turned-up nose remained motionless.