Jerome Jerome: My Life and Times

“Next time Mr. Eugen Sandow brings a few friends home with him for a little jollification, perhaps I won't throw him out into the street,” remarked our landlord. “Provided that is, of course,” he added, “that they don't make too much noise.”

Loneliness still dwelt with me. I remember one Christmas day. It was my own fault. I had received invitations, kindly meant and kindly worded. But into one I had read patronage and into another compassion; and had answered stiffly, regretting “prior engagements.” To escape from myself on the actual day, I had applied for a pass to Liverpool. We railway clerks were allowed four a year. I took an early train from Euston, arriving at Lime Street a little after twelve. A chill sleet was falling. I found a coffee shop open in a street near the docks, and dined there off roast beef and a whity-brown composition that they called plum pudding. Only one other table was occupied: the one farthest from the door. A man and woman sat there who talked continuously in whispers with their heads close together: it was too dark to see their faces. It appeared from the next day's papers that an old man had been murdered in a lonely inn on the Yorkshire wolds; and that a man and a woman had been arrested at Liverpool. There was nothing to support it, but the idea clung to me that I had dined with them on Christmas day. To fill out the time, I took a slow train back that did not reach London till past ten o'clock. The sleet had turned to snow, and the streets were strangely empty. Even the public-houses looked cheerless.

It was during this period that I set myself to learn the vices. My study of literature had impressed it upon me that without them one was a milksop, to be despised by all true men, and more especially by all fair women. Smoking, I had begun at school, but from cowardice had given it up. I take it the race has by now acquired smoking as an hereditary accomplishment. Your veriest flapper, nowadays, will enjoy her first cigarette. It was less in our blood when I was a boy. For the first few months, I found it wiser to smoke in the open, choosing quiet by-streets, so that if one scored a failure it was noticed by only a few. But with pluck and perseverance one attains to all things—even to the silly and injurious habit of pumping smoke into one's heart and liver.

With the drink I had yet greater difficulty. I commenced, perhaps ill-advisedly, with claret. It cost twopence-halfpenny the glass at a “Cave” near to the Adelphi arches. I used to sip it with my eyes shut: the after results suggesting to me that the wine St. Paul recommended to Timothy for his stomach's sake must have been of another vintage. Later on, silencing my conscience with the plea of economy, I substituted porter at three halfpence the half-pint. It was nastier, if anything, than the claret; but one gulped it down, and so got it over quicker. A fellow clerk at Euston, who had passed through similar ordeals, recommended me to try port. At Shortt's in the Strand, one got a large glass for threepence with a bun thrown in. But for Mr. Shortt, I might have been a teetotaller to this day. I would advise any boy of mine to disregard Doctor Johnson's dictum, and start straight away with port. He will save himself much suffering. From port I worked up through cider to bottled beer. Eventually, I came to drink even whisky without a shudder. The Chancellor of the Exchequer tells me that drinking during the last fifty years has increased. I feel sure there must be something he has overlooked. When I was a youngster, every corner house in London was a pub. Omnibuses did not go east or west: they went from one public-house to another. After closing time, one stopped to stare at a sober man, and drunken children were common. For recreation, young bloods of an evening would gather together in groups and do a mouch “round the houses.” To be on a footing of familiarity with a barmaid was the height of most young clerks' ambition. Failing that, to be entitled to address the pot-boy by his Christian name conferred distinction.

For the more sentimentally inclined, there was Oxford Street after the shops were closed. You caught her eye; and if she smiled you raised your hat and felt sure you had met her the summer before at Eastbourne—Eastbourne, then, was the haunt of the haut ton . All going well, you walked by her side to the Marble Arch; and maybe on a seat in the park you held her hand. Sometimes trouble came of it: and sometimes wedding-bells and—let us hope—happiness ever after. Most often, nothing further; just a passing of shiplets in the night. Myself, I had but poor success. My shyness handicapped me. I would take the lady's preliminary rebuff, her icy suggestion that I had made a mistake, as final dismissal; and would shrink back scarlet into the shadows.

Of vice that does not have to be acquired, I would speak if I thought that to any it would be of use. But, I take it, there is nothing to be done. Each lad must “dree his own wierd.” Nature and civilization are here, as elsewhere, at cross purposes: and not all the problems are soluble. Evolution may work cure. A thousand generations hence, the years between puberty and marriage may not be the fearsome thing they are to the young men of this day. The only suggestion I can make is that the writers of our stories should harp less upon sexuality: though at present there appears no sign of their doing so: and that among older men there should be less lewdness of talk and jest. In my schooltime, quite little boys would whisper to each other “smutty” stories: they must have heard them from their elders. I do not speak as a prude. Some of the best and kindest men I have met have been grave sinners in this respect. But knowing how hard put to it a young man is to keep his thoughts from being obsessed by sexual lust, to the detriment of his body and his mind, I would that all men of good-feeling treated this deep mystery of our nature with more reverence. I think it would help.

A youngster whose acquaintance I had made, a clerk in the city, had gone upon the stage. He made his first appearance at the old Camden Town Theatre, opposite the Britannia. It was burnt down the following year. I was lodging off the Maiden Road, at the time, and was awakened by the glare upon my window. I dressed and hastened out. Each street was pouring forth its throng. It was the first time the inhabitants of Camden Town had shown any interest in the place. His example had inspired me. Literature was still my goal, but, of course, I should write plays; and stage experience would be useful. Charley (I forget his surname) introduced me to “agents,” some of them fat and not too clean. One of them, I suppose, must eventually have done the trick. I remember selling a ring that had been my father's, and wandering through endless corridors in Somerset House, trying to find the room where they stamped agreements. After the first two months, I was to be paid a salary “according to ability.” I remember the phrase because, when the time came and I showed the manager my contract to remind him, he said it was absurd—that no theatre in London could afford it; but that if half a quid a week would be of any use to me I could have it. He wasn't a bad sort. His name was Murray Wood. He was the husband of Virginia Blackwood, a minor star who specialized in Dickens. We had opened at Astley's, just over Westminster Bridge, a huge barn of a place, used during the winter as a circus. I had not left Euston. I was in the advertising department, and my work was mainly going about London, seeing that bills and time-tables were properly exhibited. I could take time off for rehearsals and make it up without anybody knowing or caring. “Dolly Varden” and “Little Nell” were our first two productions; and then came “Lost in London.” I played a wicked swell, which necessitated a dress suit. I bought one in Petticoat Lane on a Sunday morning for ten shillings. For years, Petticoat Lane “turned me out,” as the phrase goes; and at no period of my life have I been so well dressed. I always dealt at the same stall; and I think the old Sheeny took a liking to me. If I hadn't the price about me, he would take five shillings down and trust me for the balance. “And if anybody wanth to know your tailor,” he said to me on one occasion, “you can tell 'em that ith Mr. Poole of Thavile Row.” And I believe it was. Later, we produced an Irish play by Manville Fenn. I played a policeman. We came across a gentleman lying in a wood. My superior officer—who was also the hero—wanted to know whether it was alive or dead. I ought to have knelt down, and after careful scrutiny pronounced that life was extinct, and had in my opinion been so for some considerable time. Instead of all which, on the second night, it came to me to just lean forward, take one satisfying sniff, and answer laconically, “Dead.” It got the laugh of the evening. The stage manager was furious; but Fenn, who was watching from the wings, said it didn't matter; and wrote me in some extra lines. We finished our season with “Mazeppa.” I played three parts—a soldier, a shepherd, and a priest, and they talked so much alike that I had to look at my clothes to make sure which I was. Lisa Weber played Mazeppa. She was a magnificent creature, and in her riding costume was the nearest thing to nature that up till then had been seen upon the London stage. Nowadays she would have attracted no attention. Our ninepenny pit was converted into six shilling stalls, and money was turned away every night. Murray Wood, good soul, raised my salary to thirty shillings a week.