CHAPTER

 XVIII the girl she had been

   XIX of the change in Thomas

    XX A love-letter

   XXI the attempt to carry Elspeth by numbers

  XXII Grizel’s glorious hour

 XXIII Tommy loses Grizel

  XXIV the monster

   XXV Mr. T. Sandys has returned to town

  XXVI Grizel all alone

 XXVII Grizel’s journey

XXVIII TWO OF THEM

  XXIX the red light

   XXX the little gods desert him

  XXXI “The man with the greetin’ eyes”

 XXXII Tommy’s best work

XXXIII THE LITTLE GODS RETURN WITH A LADY

 XXXIV A way is found for Tommy

  XXXV the perfect lover

ILLUSTRATIONS

PART I

And clung to it, his teeth set.

“She is standing behind that tree looking at us.”

She did not look up, she waited.

PART II

“I sit still by his arm-chair and tell him what is happening to his Grizel.”

They told Aaron something.

“But my friends still call me Mrs. Jerry,” she said softly.

“I woke up,” she said He heard their seductive voices, they danced around him in numbers.

TOMMY AND GRIZEL

PART I

CHAPTER I

HOW TOMMY FOUND A WAY

O.P.  Pym, the colossal Pym, that vast and rolling figure, who never knew what he was to write about until he dipped grandly, an author in such demand that on the foggy evening which starts our story his publishers have had his boots removed lest he slip thoughtlessly round the corner before his work is done, as was the great man’s way—­shall we begin with him, or with Tommy, who has just arrived in London, carrying his little box and leading a lady by the hand?  It was Pym, as we are about to see, who in the beginning held Tommy up to the public gaze, Pym who first noticed his remarkable indifference to female society, Pym who gave him——­But alack! does no one remember Pym for himself?  Is the king of the Penny Number already no more than a button that once upon a time kept Tommy’s person together?  And we are at the night when they first met!  Let us hasten into Marylebone before little Tommy arrives and Pym is swallowed like an oyster.