The Observations of Henry

by Jerome K. Jerome

“He was a rum sort of chap, always thought things out from his own point of view as it were.”

“Yes, a curious case,” I remarked to Henry; “not the sort of story to put about, however. It might give women the idea that nagging is attractive, and encourage them to try it upon husbands who do not care for that kind of excitement.”

“Not much fear of that,” replied Henry. “The nagging woman is born, as they say, not made; and she’ll nag like the roses bloom, not because she wants to, but because she can’t help it. And a woman to whom it don’t come natural will never be any real good at it, try as she may. And as for the men, why we’ll just go on selecting wives according to the old rule, so that you never know what you’ve got till it’s too late for you to do anything but make the best or the worst of it, according as your fancy takes you.

“There was a fellow,” continued Henry, “as used to work with me a good many years ago now at a small hotel in the City. He was a waiter, like myself—not a bad sort of chap, though a bit of a toff in his off-hours. He’d been engaged for some two or three years to one of the

chambermaids. A pretty, gentle-looking little thing she was, with big childish eyes, and a voice like the pouring out of water. They are strange things, women; one can never tell what they are made of from the taste of them. And while I was there, it having been a good season for both of them, they thought they’d risk it and get married. They did the sensible thing, he coming back to his work after the week’s holiday, and she to hers; the only difference being that they took a couple of rooms of their own in Middleton Row, from where in summer-time you can catch the glimpse of a green tree or two, and slept out.

“The first few months they were as happy as a couple in a play, she thinking almost as much of him as he thought of himself, which must have been a comfort

to both of them, and he as proud of her as if he made her himself. And then some fifteenth cousin or so of his, a man he had never heard of before, died in New Zealand and left him a fortune.

“That was the beginning of his troubles, and hers too. I don’t say it was enough to buy a peerage, but to a man accustomed to dream of half-crown tips it seemed an enormous fortune. Anyhow, it was sufficient to turn his head and give him ideas above his station. His first move, of course, was to chuck his berth and set fire to his dress suit, which, being tolerably greasy, burned well. Had he stopped there nobody could have blamed him. I’ve often thought myself that I would willingly give ten years of my life, provided anybody wanted them, which I don’t see how they should, to put my own behind the fire.

But he didn’t. He took a house in a mews, with the front door in a street off Grosvenor Square, furnished it like a second-class German restaurant, dressed himself like a bookmaker, and fancied that with the help of a few shady City chaps and a broken-down swell or two he had gathered round him, he was fairly on the road to Park Lane and the House of Lords.

“And the only thing that struck him as being at all in his way was his wife. In her cap and apron, or her Sunday print she had always looked as dainty and fetching a little piece of goods as a man could wish to be seen out with. Dressed according to the advice of his new-found friends, of course she looked like nothing else so much as a barn-yard chicken in turkey-cock’s feathers. He was shocked to find that her size in gloves