Novel Notes

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Jerome Klapka Jerome. Novel Notes

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

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When, on returning home one evening, after a pipe party at my friend Jephson’s, I informed my wife that I was going to write a novel, she expressed herself as pleased with the idea. She said she had often wondered I had never thought of doing so before. “Look,” she added, “how silly all the novels are nowadays; I’m sure you could write one.” (Ethelbertha intended to be complimentary, I am convinced; but there is a looseness about her mode of expression which, at times, renders her meaning obscure.)

When, however, I told her that my friend Jephson was going to collaborate with me, she remarked, “Oh,” in a doubtful tone; and when I further went on to explain to her that Selkirk Brown and Derrick MacShaughnassy were also going to assist, she replied, “Oh,” in a tone which contained no trace of doubtfulness whatever, and from which it was clear that her interest in the matter, as a practical scheme, had entirely evaporated.

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“He handed me photographs of both the young persons under consideration. I jotted down on the back of each such particulars as I deemed would assist me in estimating their respective fitness for the vacancy in question, and promised to carefully consider the problem, and write him in a day or two.

“His gratitude was touching. ‘Don’t you trouble to write no letters, sir,’ he said; ‘you just stick down “Julia” or “Hannah” on a bit of paper, and put it in an envelope. I shall know what it means, and that’s the one as I shall marry.’

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