Tommy & Co (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Grindley Junior Drops into the Position of Publisher Few are the ways of the West Central district that have changed less within the last half-century than Nevill's Court, leading from Great New Street into Fetter Lane. Its north side still consists of the same quaint row of small low shops that stood there -- doing perhaps a little brisker business -- when George the Fourth was King; its southern side of the same three substantial houses each behind a strip of garden, pleasant by contrast with surrounding grimness, built long ago -- some say before Queene Anne was dead. Out of the largest of these, passing through the garden, then well-cared for, came one sunny Sunday morning, some fifteen years before the commencement proper of this story, one Solomon Ap- plejard, pushing in front of him a perambulator. At the brick wall surmounted by wooden railings that divides the garden from the court, Solomon paused, hearing behind him the voice of Mrs. Ap- pleyard speaking from the doorstep. " If I don't see you again until dinner-time, I'll try and get on without you, understand. Don't think of nothing but your pipe, and forget the child. And be careful of the crossings." Mrs. Appleyard retired into the darkness. Solomon, steering the perambulator carefully, emerged from NevilPs Court without accident. The quiet streets drew Solomon westward. A vacant seat beneath the shade overlooking the Long Water in Kensington Gardens invited to rest. " Piper?" suggested a small boy to Solomon. " Sunday Times, 'Server? " " My boy," said Mr. Appleyard, speaking slowly, " when you've been mewed up with newspapers eighteen hours a day for six days a week, you can do without 'em for a morning. Take 'em away. I want to forget the smell of 'em." Solomon having assured himself ...