Eliza

Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Dialect spellings, contractions and discrepancies have been retained. ELIZA Says ROBERT BARR in The Idler :— "... and as for Barry Pain's 'Eliza' I question if anything more deliciously humourous, and of a humour so restrained, has been written since the time of Lamb." " It was true I ran into the horse. " ( See page 24. ) By BARRY PAIN ILLUSTRATED BY WALLACE GOLDSMITH BOSTON DANA ESTES & COMPANY PUBLISHERS Copyright, 1904 By Dana Estes & Company COLONIAL PRESS Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co. Boston, Mass., U.S.A. CONTENTS PAGE Eliza's Husband 3 The Cards 13 Eliza's Mother 23 Miss Sakers 33 The Orchestrome 41 The Tonic Port 49 The Gentleman of Title 59 The Hat 67 My Fortune 73 Shakespeare 81 The Unsolved Problem 89 The Day Off 97 The Mushroom 107 The Pleasant Surprise 115 The Mopworths 123 The Pen-wiper 135 The 9.43 143 The Conundrums 151 The Ink 159 The Public Scandal 167 The "Christian Martyr" 175 The Pagrams 183 Promotion 191 ELIZA'S HUSBAND "Suppose," I said to one of the junior clerks at our office the other day, "you were asked to describe yourself in a few words, could you do it?" His answer that he could describe me in two was no answer at all. Also the two words were not a description, and were so offensive that I did not continue the conversation. I believe there are but few people who could give you an accurate description of themselves. Often in the train to and from the city, or while walking in the street, I think over myself—what I have been, what I am, what I might be if, financially speaking, it would run to it. I imagine how I should act under different circumstances—on the receipt of a large legacy, or if for some specially clever action I were taken into partnership, or if a mad bull came down the street. I may say that I make a regular study of myself. I have from time to time recorded on paper some of the more important incidents of our married life, affecting Eliza and myself, and I present them to you, gentle reader, in this little volume. I think they show how with a very limited income—and but for occasional assistance from Eliza's mother I do not know how we…