AVERAGE JONES

By Samuel Hopkins Adams





CHAPTER I

THE B-FLAT TROMBONE


Three men sat in the Cosmic Club discussing the question: "What's
the matter with Jones?" Waldemar, the oldest of the conferees, was
the owner, and at times the operator, of an important and decent
newspaper. His heavy face wore the expression of good-humored
power, characteristic of the experienced and successful journalist.
Beside him sat Robert Bertram, the club idler, slender and languidly
elegant. The third member of the conference was Jones himself.

Average Jones had come by his nickname inevitably. His parents had
foredoomed him to it when they furnished him with the initials A. V.
R. E. as preface to his birthright of J for Jones. His character
apparently justified the chance concomitance. He was, so to speak,
a composite photograph of any thousand well-conditioned,
clean-living Americans between the ages of twenty-five and thirty.
Happily, his otherwise commonplace face was relieved by the one
unfailing characteristic of composite photographs, large, deep-set
and thoughtful eyes. Otherwise he would have passed in any crowd,