Jerry BY THE SAME AUTHOR. UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME Daddy-Long-Legs. Just Patty. Patty and Priscilla. The Four Pools Mystery. The Wheat Princess. Dear Enemy. Much Ado about Peter. London: HODDER & STOUGHTON. JERRY By JEAN WEBSTER Author of “Dear Enemy,” etc Author of “Dear Enemy,” etc HODDER AND STOUGHTON LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO Copyright, 1907, by The Century Co. The Century Co Copyright, 1906, 1907, by The Crowell Publishing Company. The Crowell Publishing Company CHAPTER I The courtyard of the Hotel du Lac, furnished with half a dozen tables and chairs, a red and green parrot chained to a perch, and a shady little arbour covered with vines, is a pleasant enough place for morning coffee, but decidedly too sunny for afternoon tea. It was close upon four of a July day, when Gustavo, his inseparable napkin floating from his arm, emerged from the cool dark doorway of the house and scanned the burning vista of tables and chairs. He would never, under ordinary circumstances, have interrupted his siesta for the mere delivery of a letter; but this particular letter was addressed to the young American man, and young American men, as every head waiter knows, are an unreasonably impatient lot. The courtyard was empty, as he might have foreseen, and he was turning with a patient sigh towards the long arbour that led to the lake, when the sound of a rustling paper in the summer-house deflected his course. He approached the doorway and looked inside. The young American man, in white flannels with a red guide-book protruding from his pocket, was comfortably stretched