Tea-Table Talk

By Jerome K Jerome

This early work by Jerome K. Jerome was originally published in 1903 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. 'Tea-Table Talk' details imaginary conversations between a writer and several un-named characters at an afternoon tea-table. Jerome Klapka Jerome was born in Walsall, England in 1859. Both his parents died while he was in his early teens, and he was forced to quit school to support himself. In 1889, Jerome published his most successful and best-remembered work, 'Three Men in a Boat'. Featuring himself and two of his friends encountering humorous situations while floating down the Thames in a small boat, the book was an instant success, and has never been out of print. In fact, its popularity was such that the number of registered Thames boats went up fifty percent in the year following its publication.

• Language: English
• Publisher: White Press
• Release date: Apr 24, 2015
• ISBN: 9781473373372

Jerome K Jerome

Jerome K. Jerome (1859–1927) was an English writer who grew up in a poverty-stricken family. After multiple bad investments and the untimely deaths of both parents, the clan struggled to make ends meet. The young Jerome was forced to drop out of school and work to support himself. During his downtime, he enjoyed the theatre and joined a local repertory troupe. He branched out and began writing essays, satires and many short stories. One of his earliest successes was Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886) but his most famous work is Three Men in a Boat (1889).

Book preview

TEA-TABLE TALK

by

Jerome K. Jerome

Copyright © 2013 Read Books Ltd.

This book is copyright and may not be

reproduced or copied in any way without

the express permission of the publisher in writing

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Contents

Jerome K. Jerome

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

Jerome K. Jerome

Jerome Klapka Jerome was born in Walsall, England in 1859. Both his parents died while he was in his early teens, and he was forced to quit school to support himself. Jerome worked for a number of years collecting coal along railway tracks, before trying his hand at acting, journalism, teaching and soliciting. At long last, in 1885, he had some success with On the Stage – and Off, a comic memoir of his experiences with an acting troupe. Jerome produced a number of essays over the following years, and married in 1888, spending the honeymoon in a little boat on the Thames.

In 1889, Jerome published his most successful and best-remembered work, Three Men in a Boat. Featuring himself and two of his friends encountering humorous situations while floating down the Thames in a small boat, the book was an instant success, and has never been out of print. In fact, its popularity was such that the number of registered Thames boats went up fifty percent in the year following its publication. With the financial security provided by Three Men in a Boat, Jerome was able to dedicate himself fully to writing, producing eleven more novels and a number of anthologies of short fiction.

In 1926, Jerome published his autobiography, My Life and Times. He died a year later, aged 68.

CHAPTER I

They are very pretty, some of them, said the Woman of the World; not the sort of letters I should have written myself.

I should like to see a love-letter of yours, interrupted the Minor Poet.

It is very kind of you to say so, replied the Woman of the World. It never occurred to me that you would care for one.

It is what I have always maintained, retorted the Minor Poet; you have never really understood me.

I believe a volume of assorted love-letters would sell well, said the Girton Girl; written by the same hand, if you like, but to different correspondents at different periods. To the same person one is bound, more or less, to repeat oneself.

Or from different lovers to the same correspondent, suggested the Philosopher. It would be interesting to observe the response of various temperaments exposed to an unvaried influence. It would throw light on the vexed question whether the qualities that adorn our beloved are her own, or ours lent to her for the occasion. Would the same woman be addressed as ‘My Queen!’ by one correspondent, and as ‘Dear Popsy Wopsy!’ by another, or would she to all her lovers be herself?

You might try it, I suggested to the Woman of the World, selecting, of course, only the more interesting.

It would cause so much unpleasantness, don’t you think? replied the Woman of the World. Those I left out would never forgive me. It is always so with people you forget to invite to a funeral - they think it is done with deliberate intention to slight them.

The first love-letter I ever wrote, said the Minor Poet, was when I was sixteen. Her name was Monica; she was the left-hand girl in the third joint of the crocodile. I have never known a creature so ethereally beautiful. I wrote the letter and sealed it, but I could not make up my mind whether to slip it into her hand when we passed them, as we usually did on Thursday afternoons, or to wait for Sunday.

There can be no question, murmured the Girton Girl abstractedly, the best time is just as one is coming out of church. There is so much confusion; besides, one has one’s Prayer-book - I beg your pardon.

I was saved the trouble of deciding, continued the Minor Poet. On Thursday her place was occupied by a fat, red-headed girl, who replied to my look of inquiry with an idiotic laugh, and on Sunday I searched the Hypatia House pews for her in vain. I learnt subsequently that she had been sent home on the previous Wednesday, suddenly. It appeared that I was not the only one. I left the letter where I had placed it, at the bottom of my desk, and in course of time forgot it. Years later I fell in love really. I sat down to write her a love-letter that should imprison her as by some subtle spell. I would weave into it the love of all the ages. When I had finished it, I read it through and was pleased with it. Then by an accident, as I was going to seal it, I overturned my desk, and on to the floor fell that other love-letter I had written seven years before, when a boy. Out of idle curiosity I tore it open; I thought it would afford me amusement. I ended by posting it instead of the letter I had just completed. It carried precisely the same meaning; but it was better expressed, with greater sincerity, with more artistic simplicity.

After all, said the Philosopher, what can a man do more than tell a woman that he loves her? All the rest is mere picturesque amplification, on a par with the ‘Full and descriptive report from our Special Correspondent,’ elaborated out of a three-line telegram of Reuter’s.

Following that argument, said the Minor Poet, "you could reduce ‘Romeo and Juliet’ to a two-line tragedy -

Lass and lad, loved like mad;

Silly muddle, very sad."

To be told that you are loved, said the Girton Girl, is only the beginning of the theorem - its proposition, so to speak.

"Or