Produced by Ron Burkey, and Amy Thomte

THE IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW.

by Jerome K. Jerome

TO

THE VERY DEAR AND WELL-BELOVED

FRIEND

OF MY PROSPEROUS AND EVIL DAYS--

TO THE FRIEND WHO, THOUGH IN THE EARLY STAGES OF OUR ACQUAINTANCESHIP DID OFTTIMES DISAGREE WITH ME, HAS SINCE BECOME TO BE MY VERY WARMEST COMRADE--

TO THE FRIEND WHO, HOWEVER OFTEN I MAY PUT HIM OUT, NEVER (NOW) UPSETS ME IN REVENGE--

TO THE FRIEND WHO, TREATED WITH MARKED COOLNESS BY ALL THE FEMALE MEMBERS OF MY HOUSEHOLD, AND REGARDED WITH SUSPICION BY MY VERY DOG, NEVERTHELESS SEEMS DAY BY DAY TO BE MORE DRAWN BY ME, AND IN RETURN TO MORE AND MORE IMPREGNATE ME WITH THE ODOR OF HIS FRIENDSHIP--

TO THE FRIEND WHO NEVER TELLS ME OF MY FAULTS, NEVER WANTS TO BORROW MONEY, AND NEVER TALKS ABOUT HIMSELF--

TO THE COMPANION OF MY IDLE HOURS, THE SOOTHER OF MY SORROWS, THE CONFIDANT OF MY JOYS AND HOPES--

MY OLDEST AND STRONGEST

PIPE,

THIS LITTLE VOLUME

IS

GRATEFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY

DEDICATED.

PREFACE

One or two friends to whom I showed these papers in MS. having observed that they were not half bad, and some of my relations having promised to buy the book if it ever came out, I feel I have no right to longer delay its issue. But for this, as one may say, public demand, I perhaps should not have ventured to offer these mere "idle thoughts" of mine as mental food for the English-speaking peoples of the earth. What readers ask nowadays in a book is that it should improve, instruct, and elevate. This book wouldn't elevate a cow. I cannot conscientiously recommend it for any useful purposes whatever. All I can suggest is that when you get tired of reading "the best hundred books," you may take this up for half an hour. It will be a change.

CONTENTS.

IDLE THOUGHTS OF AN IDLE FELLOW.

ON BEING IDLE ON BEING IN LOVE ON BEING IN THE BLUES ON BEING HARD UP ON VANITY AND VANITIES ON GETTING ON IN THE WORLD ON THE WEATHER ON CATS AND DOGS ON BEING SHY ON BABIES ON EATING AND DRINKING ON FURNISHED APARTMENTS ON DRESS AND DEPORTMENT ON MEMORY

Table of contents (by pages)

• 1: Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow by Jerome
• 2: The idle thoughts of an idle fellow
• 3: At least they were sweetly pretty then
• 4: I like idling when I ought not to be idling
• 5: Then A's girl was a pretty girl
• 6: It will dwindle and dwindle as the months roll on
• 7: Ere thirty he has joined the ranks of the sneerers
• 8: It is you who must wake it to noble deeds
• 9: Those foolish days of noble longings and of noble strivings
• 10: You curse the Thompsons and decide not to go
• 11: But never in the blues and never melancholy
• 12: Or when Tom and Maggie Tulliver
• 13: I always give the waiter a shilling
• 14: His shabbiness did not trouble him
• 15: The youthful inhabitants of the neighborhood
• 16: All is vanity and everybody's vain
• 17: Bad unkie oo bad man me tell MAR
• 18: And pussy will love me because I am good
• 19: Flattery is its very life blood
• 20: Ambition is only vanity ennobled
• 21: A motley throng a motley throng
• 22: What would the world do without ambitious people
• 23: Shakespeare and the little Shakespeares
• 24: She laughed and said I was a funny gentleman
• 25: She then became thoughtful and hazarded samplers
• 26: Beneath the cold world's blasts and snows
• 27: Everything goes wrong in wet weather
• 28: I bought an automaton once in April
• 29: It began with Gustavus Adolphus
• 30: I put Tittums in my pocket and returned to my desk
• 31: I like cats and dogs very much indeed
• 32: We like you both all the better for your being stupid
• 33: I like that tale of Bishop Hatto and the rats
• 34: Longhaired dog of nondescript breed
• 35: What marvelous vitality a kitten has
• 36: All great literary men are shy
• 37: Shyness simply means extreme sensibility
• 38: But the really shy man knows better
• 39: The shy man is regarded as an animate joke
• 40: There is no such thing as a shy woman
• 41: Tells you that this is the baby
• 42: Give an average baby a fair chance
• 43: Think of your big baby a little
• 44: Do you ever suffer from dyspepsia
• 45: An aching head soon makes one forget an aching heart
• 46: Round to the right and cross by the third stile
• 47: We tried a mouthful of the duck
• 48: It's very shocking that they should
• 49: And the screen she worked in those far by gone days
• 50: The furniture of furnished apartments
• 51: Addison and Goldsmith wrote in garrets
• 52: I have all Herr Teufelsdrockh's affection for attics
• 53: No matter where we wait for them
• 54: Their canes and dangling seals
• 55: It decked itself in flowing curls and scarlet doublets
• 56: I call upon the bootmakers to reform
• 57: A meek deportment is a great mistake in the world
• 58: I collected fourpence by the recital of I remember
• 59: The sunshine casts no shadows on the past
• 60: Much marveled our brave knight
• 61: Kindly phantoms haunt us as they will
• 62: The boy at the cigar emporium next door punching his instead
• 63: After worrying enough about these wretched inks