The History of Mr. Polly

by

H. G. Wells

Chapter the First

Beginnings, and the Bazaar

I

"Hole!" said Mr. Polly, and then for a change, and with greatlyincreased emphasis: "'Ole!" He paused, and then broke out with one ofhis private and peculiar idioms. "Oh! Beastly Silly Wheeze of a Hole!"

He was sitting on a stile between two threadbare looking fields, andsuffering acutely from indigestion. 

He suffered from indigestion now nearly every afternoon in his life, but as he lacked introspection he projected the associated discomfortupon the world. Every afternoon he discovered afresh that life as awhole and every aspect of life that presented itself was "beastly. "And this afternoon, lured by the delusive blueness of a sky that wasblue because the wind was in the east, he had come out in the hope ofsnatching something of the joyousness of spring. The mysteriousalchemy of mind and body refused, however, to permit any joyousnesswhatever in the spring. 

He had had a little difficulty in finding his cap before he came out. He wanted his cap--the new golf cap--and Mrs. Polly must needs fishout his old soft brown felt hat. "'_Ere's_ your 'at, " she said in atone of insincere encouragement. 

He had been routing among the piled newspapers under the kitchendresser, and had turned quite hopefully and taken the thing. He put iton. But it didn't feel right. Nothing felt right. He put a tremblinghand upon the crown of the thing and pressed it on his head, and triedit askew to the right and then askew to the left. 

Then the full sense of the indignity offered him came home to him. Thehat masked the upper sinister quarter of his face, and he spoke with awrathful eye regarding his wife from under the brim. In a voice thickwith fury he said: "I s'pose you'd like me to wear that silly Mud Piefor ever, eh? I tell you I won't. I'm sick of it. I'm pretty near sickof everything, comes to that.... Hat!"

He clutched it with quivering fingers. "Hat!" he repeated. Then heflung it to the ground, and kicked it with extraordinary fury acrossthe kitchen. It flew up against the door and dropped to the groundwith its ribbon band half off. 

"Shan't go out!" he said, and sticking his hands into his jacketpockets discovered the missing cap in the right one. 

There was nothing for it but to go straight upstairs without a word, and out, slamming the shop door hard. 

"Beauty!" said Mrs. Polly at last to a tremendous silence, picking upand dusting the rejected headdress. "Tantrums, " she added. "I 'aven'tpatience. " And moving with the slow reluctance of a deeply offendedwoman, she began to pile together the simple apparatus of their recentmeal, for transportation to the scullery sink. 

The repast she had prepared for him did not seem to her to justify hisingratitude. There had been the cold pork from Sunday and some nicecold potatoes, and Rashdall's Mixed Pickles, of which he wasinordinately fond. He had eaten three gherkins, two onions, a smallcauliflower head and several capers with every appearance of appetite, and indeed with avidity; and then there had been cold suet pudding tofollow, with treacle, and then a nice bit of cheese. It was the pale, hard sort of cheese he liked; red cheese he declared was indigestible. He had also had three big slices of greyish baker's bread, and haddrunk the best part of the jugful of beer.... But there seems to be nopleasing some people. 

"Tantrums!" said Mrs. Polly at the sink, struggling with the mustardon his plate and expressing the only solution of the problem thatoccurred to her. 

And Mr. Polly sat on the stile and hated the whole scheme oflife--which was at once excessive and inadequate as a solution. Hehated Foxbourne, he hated Foxbourne High Street, he hated his shop andhis wife and his neighbours--every blessed neighbour--and withindescribable bitterness he hated himself. 

"Why did I ever get in this silly Hole?" he said. "Why did I ever?"

He sat on the stile, and looked with eyes that seemed blurred withimpalpable flaws at a world in which even the spring buds were wilted, the sunlight metallic and the shadows mixed with blue-black ink. 

To the moralist I know he might have served as a figure of sinfuldiscontent, but that is because it is the habit of moralists to ignorematerial circumstances, --if indeed one may speak of a recent meal as acircumstance, --with Mr. Polly _circum_. Drink, indeed, our teacherswill criticise nowadays both as regards quantity and quality, butneither church nor state nor school will raise a warning fingerbetween a man and his hunger and his wife's catering. So on nearlyevery day in his life Mr. Polly fell into a violent rage and hatredagainst the outer world in the afternoon, and never suspected that itwas this inner world to which I am with such masterly delicacyalluding, that was thus reflecting its sinister disorder upon thethings without. It is a pity that some human beings are not moretransparent. If Mr. Polly, for example, had been transparent or evenpassably translucent, then perhaps he might have realised from theLaocoon struggle he would have glimpsed, that indeed he was not somuch a human being as a civil war. 

Wonderful things must have been going on inside Mr. Polly. Oh!wonderful things. It must have been like a badly managed industrialcity during a period of depression; agitators, acts of violence, strikes, the forces of law and order doing their best, rushings to andfro, upheavals, the _Marseillaise_, tumbrils, the rumble and thethunder of the tumbrils.... 

I do not know why the east wind aggravates life to unhealthy people. It made Mr. Polly's teeth seem loose in his head, and his skin feellike a misfit, and his hair a dry, stringy exasperation.... 

Why cannot doctors give us an antidote to the east wind?

"Never have the sense to get your hair cut till it's too long, " saidMr. Polly catching sight of his shadow, "you blighted, degeneratedPaintbrush! Ugh!" and he flattened down the projecting tails with anurgent hand. 

II

Mr. Polly's age was exactly thirty-five years and a half. He was ashort, compact figure, and a little inclined to a localised_embonpoint_. His face was not unpleasing; the features fine, but atrifle too pointed about the nose to be classically perfect. Thecorners of his sensitive mouth were depressed. His eyes were ruddybrown and troubled, and the left one was round with more of wonder init than its fellow. His complexion was dull and yellowish. That, as Ihave explained, on account of those civil disturbances. He was, in thetechnical sense of the word, clean shaved, with a small sallow patchunder the right ear and a cut on the chin. His brow had the littlepuckerings of a thoroughly discontented man, little wrinklings andlumps, particularly over his right eye, and he sat with his hands inhis pockets, a little askew on the stile and swung one leg. "Hole!" herepeated presently. 

He broke into a quavering song. "Ro-o-o-tten Be-e-astly Silly Hole!"

His voice thickened with rage, and the rest of his discourse wasmarred by an unfortunate choice of epithets. 

He was dressed in a shabby black morning coat and vest; the braid thatbound these garments was a little loose in places; his collar waschosen from stock and with projecting corners, technically a"wing-poke"; that and his tie, which was new and loose and rich incolouring, had been selected to encourage and stimulate customers--forhe dealt in gentlemen's outfitting. His golf cap, which was also fromstock and aslant over his eye, gave his misery a desperate touch. Hewore brown leather boots--because he hated the smell of blacking. 

Perhaps after all it was not simply indigestion that troubled him. 

Behind the superficialities of Mr. Polly's being, moved a larger andvaguer distress. The elementary education he had acquired had left himwith the impression that arithmetic was a fluky science and bestavoided in practical affairs, but even the absence of book-keeping anda total inability to distinguish between capital and interest couldnot blind him for ever to the fact that the little shop in the HighStreet was not paying. An absence of returns, a constriction ofcredit, a depleted till, the most valiant resolves to keep smiling, could not prevail for ever against these insistent phenomena. Onemight bustle about in the morning before dinner, and in the afternoonafter tea and forget that huge dark cloud of insolvency that gatheredand spread in the background, but it was part of the desolation ofthese afternoon periods, these grey spaces of time after meals, whenall one's courage had descended to the unseen battles of the pit, thatlife seemed stripped to the bone and one saw with a hopelessclearness. 

Let me tell the history of Mr. Polly from the cradle to these presentdifficulties. 

"First the infant, mewling and puking in its nurse's arms. "

There had been a time when two people had thought Mr. Polly the mostwonderful and adorable thing in the world, had kissed his toe-nails, saying "myum, myum, " and marvelled at the exquisite softness anddelicacy of his hair, had called to one another to remark the peculiardistinction with which he bubbled, had disputed whether the sound hehad made was _just da da_, or truly and intentionally dadda, hadwashed him in the utmost detail, and wrapped him up in soft, warmblankets, and smothered him with kisses. A regal time that was, andfour and thirty years ago; and a merciful forgetfulness barred Mr. Polly from ever bringing its careless luxury, its autocratic demandsand instant obedience, into contrast with his present condition oflife. These two people had worshipped him from the crown of his headto the soles of his exquisite feet. And also they had fed him ratherunwisely, for no one had ever troubled to teach his mother anythingabout the mysteries of a child's upbringing--though of course themonthly nurse and her charwoman gave some valuable hints--and by hisfifth birthday the perfect rhythms of his nice new interior werealready darkened with perplexity .... 

His mother died when he was seven. 

He began only to have distinctive memories of himself in the time whenhis education had already begun. 

I remember seeing a picture of Education--in some place. I think itwas Education, but quite conceivably it represented the Empireteaching her Sons, and I have a strong impression that it was a wallpainting upon some public building in Manchester or Birmingham orGlasgow, but very possibly I am mistaken about that. It represented aglorious woman with a wise and fearless face stooping over herchildren and pointing them to far horizons. The sky displayed thepearly warmth of a summer dawn, and all the painting was marvellouslybright as if with the youth and hope of the delicately beautifulchildren in the foreground. She was telling them, one felt, of thegreat prospect of life that opened before them, of the spectacle ofthe world, the splendours of sea and mountain they might travel andsee, the joys of skill they might acquire, of effort and the pride ofeffort and the devotions and nobilities it was theirs to achieve. Perhaps even she whispered of the warm triumphant mystery of love thatcomes at last to those who have patience and unblemished hearts.... She was reminding them of their great heritage as English children, rulers of more than one-fifth of mankind, of the obligation to do andbe the best that such a pride of empire entails, of their essentialnobility and knighthood and the restraints and the charities and thedisciplined strength that is becoming in knights and rulers.... 

The education of Mr. Polly did not follow this picture very closely. He went for some time to a National School, which was run on severelyeconomical lines to keep down the rates by a largely untrained staff, he was set sums to do that he did not understand, and that no one madehim understand, he was made to read the catechism and Bible with theutmost industry and an entire disregard of punctuation orsignificance, and caused to imitate writing copies and drawing copies, and given object lessons upon sealing wax and silk-worms and potatobugs and ginger and iron and such like things, and taught variousother subjects his mind refused to entertain, and afterwards, when hewas about twelve, he was jerked by his parent to "finish off" in aprivate school of dingy aspect and still dingier pretensions, wherethere were no object lessons, and the studies of book-keeping andFrench were pursued (but never effectually overtaken) under theguidance of an elderly gentleman who wore a nondescript gown and tooksnuff, wrote copperplate, explained nothing, and used a cane withremarkable dexterity and gusto. 

Mr. Polly went into the National School at six and he left the privateschool at fourteen, and by that time his mind was in much the samestate that you would be in, dear reader, if you were operated upon forappendicitis by a well-meaning, boldly enterprising, but ratherover-worked and under-paid butcher boy, who was superseded towards theclimax of the operation by a left-handed clerk of high principles butintemperate habits, --that is to say, it was in a thorough mess. Thenice little curiosities and willingnesses of a child were in a jumbledand thwarted condition, hacked and cut about--the operators had left, so to speak, all their sponges and ligatures in the mangledconfusion--and Mr. Polly had lost much of his natural confidence, sofar as figures and sciences and languages and the possibilities oflearning things were concerned. He thought of the present world nolonger as a wonderland of experiences, but as geography and history, as the repeating of names that were hard to pronounce, and lists ofproducts and populations and heights and lengths, and as lists anddates--oh! and boredom indescribable. He thought of religion as therecital of more or less incomprehensible words that were hard toremember, and of the Divinity as of a limitless Being having thenature of a schoolmaster and making infinite rules, known and unknownrules, that were always ruthlessly enforced, and with an infinitecapacity for punishment and, most horrible of all to think of!limitless powers of espial. (So to the best of his ability he did notthink of that unrelenting eye. ) He was uncertain about the spellingand pronunciation of most of the words in our beautiful but abundantand perplexing tongue, --that especially was a pity because wordsattracted him, and under happier conditions he might have used themwell--he was always doubtful whether it was eight sevens or nineeights that was sixty-three--(he knew no method for settling thedifficulty) and he thought the merit of a drawing consisted in thecare with which it was "lined in. " "Lining in" bored him beyondmeasure. 

But the _indigestions_ of mind and body that were to play so large apart in his subsequent career were still only beginning. His liver andhis gastric juice, his wonder and imagination kept up a fight againstthe things that threatened to overwhelm soul and body together. Outside the regions devastated by the school curriculum he was stillintensely curious. He had cheerful phases of enterprise, and aboutthirteen he suddenly discovered reading and its joys. He began to readstories voraciously, and books of travel, provided they were alsoadventurous. He got these chiefly from the local institute, and healso "took in, " irregularly but thoroughly, one of those inspiringweeklies that dull people used to call "penny dreadfuls, " admirableweeklies crammed with imagination that the cheap boys' "comics" ofto-day have replaced. At fourteen, when he emerged from the valley ofthe shadow of education, there survived something, indeed it survivedstill, obscured and thwarted, at five and thirty, that pointed--notwith a visible and prevailing finger like the finger of that beautifulwoman in the picture, but pointed nevertheless--to the idea that therewas interest and happiness in the world. Deep in the being of Mr. Polly, deep in that darkness, like a creature which has been beatenabout the head and left for dead but still lives, crawled a persuasionthat over and above the things that are jolly and "bits of all right, "there was beauty, there was delight, that somewhere--magicallyinaccessible perhaps, but still somewhere, were pure and easy andjoyous states of body and mind. 

He would sneak out on moonless winter nights and stare up at thestars, and afterwards find it difficult to tell his father where hehad been. 

He would read tales about hunters and explorers, and imagine himselfriding mustangs as fleet as the wind across the prairies of WesternAmerica, or coming as a conquering and adored white man into theswarming villages of Central Africa. He shot bears with a revolver--acigarette in the other hand--and made a necklace of their teeth andclaws for the chief's beautiful young daughter. Also he killed a lionwith a pointed stake, stabbing through the beast's heart as it stoodover him. 

He thought it would be splendid to be a diver and go down into thedark green mysteries of the sea. 

He led stormers against well-nigh impregnable forts, and died on theramparts at the moment of victory. (His grave was watered by anation's tears. )

He rammed and torpedoed ships, one against ten. 

He was beloved by queens in barbaric lands, and reconciled wholenations to the Christian faith. 

He was martyred, and took it very calmly and beautifully--but onlyonce or twice after the Revivalist week. It did not become a habitwith him. 

He explored the Amazon, and found, newly exposed by the fall of agreat tree, a rock of gold. 

Engaged in these pursuits he would neglect the work immediately inhand, sitting somewhat slackly on the form and projecting himself in amanner tempting to a schoolmaster with a cane.... And twice he hadbooks confiscated. 

Recalled to the realities of life, he would rub himself or sigh deeplyas the occasion required, and resume his attempts to write as good ascopperplate. He hated writing; the ink always crept up his fingers andthe smell of ink offended him. And he was filled with unexpresseddoubts. _Why_ should writing slope down from right to left? _Why_should downstrokes be thick and upstrokes thin? _Why_ should thehandle of one's pen point over one's right shoulder?

His copy books towards the end foreshadowed his destiny and took theform of commercial documents. "_Dear Sir_, " they ran, "_Referring toyour esteemed order of the 26th ult. , we beg to inform you_, " and soon. 

The compression of Mr. Polly's mind and soul in the educationalinstitutions of his time, was terminated abruptly by his fatherbetween his fourteenth and fifteenth birthday. His father--who hadlong since forgotten the time when his son's little limbs seemed tohave come straight from God's hand, and when he had kissed five minutetoe-nails in a rapture of loving tenderness--remarked:

"It's time that dratted boy did something for a living. "

And a month or so later Mr. Polly began that career in business thatled him at last to the sole proprietorship of a bankrupt outfitter'sshop--and to the stile on which he was sitting. 

III

Mr. Polly was not naturally interested in hosiery and gentlemen'soutfitting. At times, indeed, he urged himself to a spurious curiosityabout that trade, but presently something more congenial came alongand checked the effort. He was apprenticed in one of those large, rather low-class establishments which sell everything, from pianos andfurniture to books and millinery, a department store in fact, The PortBurdock Drapery Bazaar at Port Burdock, one of the three townshipsthat are grouped around the Port Burdock naval dockyards. There heremained six years. He spent most of the time inattentive to business, in a sort of uncomfortable happiness, increasing his indigestion. 

On the whole he preferred business to school; the hours were longerbut the tension was not nearly so great. The place was better aired, you were not kept in for no reason at all, and the cane was notemployed. You watched the growth of your moustache with interest andimpatience, and mastered the beginnings of social intercourse. Youtalked, and found there were things amusing to say. Also you hadregular pocket money, and a voice in the purchase of your clothes, andpresently a small salary. And there were girls. And friendship! In theretrospect Port Burdock sparkled with the facets of quite a cluster ofremembered jolly times. 

("Didn't save much money though, " said Mr. Polly. )

The first apprentices' dormitory was a long bleak room with six beds, six chests of drawers and looking glasses and a number of boxes ofwood or tin; it opened into a still longer and bleaker room of eightbeds, and this into a third apartment with yellow grained paper andAmerican cloth tables, which was the dining-room by day and the men'ssitting-and smoking-room after nine. Here Mr. Polly, who had been anonly child, first tasted the joys of social intercourse. At firstthere were attempts to bully him on account of his refusal to considerface washing a diurnal duty, but two fights with the apprentices nextabove him, established a useful reputation for choler, and thepresence of girl apprentices in the shop somehow raised his standardof cleanliness to a more acceptable level. He didn't of course havevery much to do with the feminine staff in his department, but hespoke to them casually as he traversed foreign parts of the Bazaar, orgot out of their way politely, or helped them to lift down heavyboxes, and on such occasions he felt their scrutiny. Except in thecourse of business or at meal times the men and women of theestablishment had very little opportunity of meeting; the men were intheir rooms and the girls in theirs. Yet these feminine creatures, atonce so near and so remote, affected him profoundly. He would watchthem going to and fro, and marvel secretly at the beauty of their hairor the roundness of their necks or the warm softness of their cheeksor the delicacy of their hands. He would fall into passions for themat dinner time, and try and show devotions by his manner of passingthe bread and margarine at tea. There was a very fair-haired, fair-skinned apprentice in the adjacent haberdashery to whom he said"good-morning" every morning, and for a period it seemed to him themost significant event in his day. When she said, "I _do_ hope it willbe fine to-morrow, " he felt it marked an epoch. He had had no sisters, and was innately disposed to worship womankind. But he did not betrayas much to Platt and Parsons. 

To Platt and Parsons he affected an attitude of seasoned depravitytowards womankind. Platt and Parsons were his contemporary apprenticesin departments of the drapery shop, and the three were drawn togetherinto a close friendship by the fact that all their names began with P. They decided they were the Three Ps, and went about together of anevening with the bearing of desperate dogs. Sometimes, when they hadmoney, they went into public houses and had drinks. Then they wouldbecome more desperate than ever, and walk along the pavement under thegas lamps arm in arm singing. Platt had a good tenor voice, and hadbeen in a church choir, and so he led the singing; Parsons had aserviceable bellow, which roared and faded and roared again verywonderfully; Mr. Polly's share was an extraordinary lowing noise, asort of flat recitative which he called "singing seconds. " They wouldhave sung catches if they had known how to do it, but as it was theysang melancholy music hall songs about dying soldiers and the oldfolks far away. 

They would sometimes go into the quieter residential quarters of PortBurdock, where policemen and other obstacles were infrequent, andreally let their voices soar like hawks and feel very happy. The dogsof the district would be stirred to hopeless emulation, and would keepit up for long after the Three Ps had been swallowed up by the night. One jealous brute of an Irish terrier made a gallant attempt to biteParsons, but was beaten by numbers and solidarity. 

The Three Ps took the utmost interest in each other and found no othercompany so good. They talked about everything in the world, and wouldgo on talking in their dormitory after the gas was out until the othermen were reduced to throwing boots; they skulked from theirdepartments in the slack hours of the afternoon to gossip in thepacking-room of the warehouse; on Sundays and Bank holidays they wentfor long walks together, talking. 

Platt was white-faced and dark, and disposed to undertones and mysteryand a curiosity about society and the _demi-monde_. He kept himself_au courant_ by reading a penny paper of infinite suggestion called_Modern Society_. Parsons was of an ampler build, already promisingfatness, with curly hair and a lot of rolling, rollicking, curlyfeatures, and a large blob-shaped nose. He had a great memory and areal interest in literature. He knew great portions of Shakespeare andMilton by heart, and would recite them at the slightest provocation. He read everything he could get hold of, and if he liked it he read italoud. It did not matter who else liked it. At first Mr. Polly wasdisposed to be suspicious of this literature, but was carried away byParsons' enthusiasm. The Three Ps went to a performance of "Romeo andJuliet" at the Port Burdock Theatre Royal, and hung over the galleryfascinated. After that they made a sort of password of: "Do you biteyour thumbs at Us, Sir?"

To which the countersign was: "We bite our thumbs. "

For weeks the glory of Shakespeare's Verona lit Mr. Polly's life. Hewalked as though he carried a sword at his side, and swung a mantlefrom his shoulders. He went through the grimy streets of Port Burdockwith his eye on the first floor windows--looking for balconies. Aladder in the yard flooded his mind with romantic ideas. Then Parsonsdiscovered an Italian writer, whose name Mr. Polly rendered as"Bocashieu, " and after some excursions into that author's remains thetalk of Parsons became infested with the word "_amours_, " and Mr. Polly would stand in front of his hosiery fixtures trifling with paperand string and thinking of perennial picnics under dark olive trees inthe everlasting sunshine of Italy. 

And about that time it was that all Three Ps adopted turn-down collarsand large, loose, artistic silk ties, which they tied very much on oneside and wore with an air of defiance. And a certain swashbucklingcarriage. 

And then came the glorious revelation of that great Frenchman whom Mr. Polly called "Rabooloose. " The Three Ps thought the birth feast ofGargantua the most glorious piece of writing in the world, and I amnot certain they were wrong, and on wet Sunday evenings where therewas danger of hymn singing they would get Parsons to read it aloud. 

Towards the several members of the Y. M. C. A. Who shared thedormitory, the Three Ps always maintained a sarcastic and defiantattitude. 

"We got a perfect right to do what we like in our corner, " Plattmaintained. "You do what you like in yours. "

"But the language!" objected Morrison, the white-faced, earnest-eyedimprover, who was leading a profoundly religious life under greatdifficulties. 

"_Language_, man!" roared Parsons, "why, it's _Literature_!"

"Sunday isn't the time for Literature. "

"It's the only time we've got. And besides--"

The horrors of religious controversy would begin.... 

Mr. Polly stuck loyally to the Three Ps, but in the secret places ofhis heart he was torn. A fire of conviction burnt in Morrison's eyesand spoke in his urgent persuasive voice; he lived the better lifemanifestly, chaste in word and deed, industrious, studiously kindly. When the junior apprentice had sore feet and homesickness Morrisonwashed the feet and comforted the heart, and he helped other men toget through with their work when he might have gone early, asuperhuman thing to do. Polly was secretly a little afraid to be leftalone with this man and the power of the spirit that was in him. Hefelt watched. 

Platt, also struggling with things his mind could not contrive toreconcile, said "that confounded hypocrite. "

"He's no hypocrite, " said Parsons, "he's no hypocrite, O' Man. Buthe's got no blessed Joy de Vive; that's what's wrong with him. Let'sgo down to the Harbour Arms and see some of those blessed old captainsgetting drunk. "

"Short of sugar, O' Man, " said Mr. Polly, slapping his trouser pocket. 

"Oh, _carm_ on, " said Parsons. "Always do it on tuppence for abitter. "

"Lemme get my pipe on, " said Platt, who had recently taken to smokingwith great ferocity. "Then I'm with you. "

Pause and struggle. 

"Don't ram it down, O' Man, " said Parsons, watching with knittedbrows. "Don't ram it down. Give it Air. Seen my stick, O' Man? RightO. "

And leaning on his cane he composed himself in an attitude ofsympathetic patience towards Platt's incendiary efforts. 

IV

Jolly days of companionship they were for the incipient bankrupt onthe stile to look back upon. 

The interminable working hours of the Bazaar had long since faded fromhis memory--except for one or two conspicuous rows and one or twolarks--but the rare Sundays and holidays shone out like diamonds amongpebbles. They shone with the mellow splendour of evening skiesreflected in calm water, and athwart them all went old Parsonsbellowing an interpretation of life, gesticulating, appreciating andmaking appreciate, expounding books, talking of that mystery of his, the "Joy de Vive. "

There were some particularly splendid walks on Bank holidays. TheThree Ps would start on Sunday morning early and find a room in somemodest inn and talk themselves asleep, and return singing through thenight, or having an "argy bargy" about the stars, on Monday evening. They would come over the hills out of the pleasant Englishcountry-side in which they had wandered, and see Port Burdock spreadout below, a network of interlacing street lamps and shifting tramlights against the black, beacon-gemmed immensity of the harbourwaters. 

"Back to the collar, O' Man, " Parsons would say. There is nosatisfactory plural to O' Man, so he always used it in the singular. 

"Don't mention it, " said Platt. 

And once they got a boat for the whole summer day, and rowed up pastthe moored ironclads and the black old hulks and the various shippingof the harbour, past a white troopship and past the trim front and theships and interesting vistas of the dockyard to the shallow channelsand rocky weedy wildernesses of the upper harbour. And Parsons and Mr. Polly had a great dispute and quarrel that day as to how far a big guncould shoot. 

The country over the hills behind Port Burdock is all that anold-fashioned, scarcely disturbed English country-side should be. Inthose days the bicycle was still rare and costly and the motor car hadyet to come and stir up rural serenities. The Three Ps would takefootpaths haphazard across fields, and plunge into unknown windinglanes between high hedges of honeysuckle and dogrose. Greatly daring, they would follow green bridle paths through primrose studdedundergrowths, or wander waist deep in the bracken of beech woods. About twenty miles from Port Burdock there came a region of hopgardens and hoast crowned farms, and further on, to be reached only bycheap tickets at Bank Holiday times, was a sterile ridge of very cleanroads and red sand pits and pines and gorse and heather. The Three Pscould not afford to buy bicycles and they found boots the greatestitem of their skimpy expenditure. They threw appearances to the windsat last and got ready-made workingmen's hob-nails. There was muchdiscussion and strong feeling over this step in the dormitory. 

There is no country-side like the English country-side for those whohave learnt to love it; its firm yet gentle lines of hill and dale, its ordered confusion of features, its deer parks and downland, itscastles and stately houses, its hamlets and old churches, its farmsand ricks and great barns and ancient trees, its pools and ponds andshining threads of rivers; its flower-starred hedgerows, its orchardsand woodland patches, its village greens and kindly inns. Othercountry-sides have their pleasant aspects, but none such variety, nonethat shine so steadfastly throughout the year. Picardy is pink andwhite and pleasant in the blossom time, Burgundy goes on with itssunshine and wide hillsides and cramped vineyards, a beautiful tunerepeated and repeated, Italy gives salitas and wayside chapels andchestnuts and olive orchards, the Ardennes has its woods andgorges--Touraine and the Rhineland, the wide Campagna with its distantApennines, and the neat prosperities and mountain backgrounds of SouthGermany, all clamour their especial merits at one's memory. And thereare the hills and fields of Virginia, like an England grown very bigand slovenly, the woods and big river sweeps of Pennsylvania, the trimNew England landscape, a little bleak and rather fine like the NewEngland mind, and the wide rough country roads and hills and woodlandof New York State. But none of these change scene and character inthree miles of walking, nor have so mellow a sunlight nor sodiversified a cloudland, nor confess the perpetual refreshment of thestrong soft winds that blow from off the sea as our Mother Englanddoes. 

It was good for the Three Ps to walk through such a land and forgetfor a time that indeed they had no footing in it all, that they weredoomed to toil behind counters in such places as Port Burdock for thebetter part of their lives. They would forget the customers andshopwalkers and department buyers and everything, and become justhappy wanderers in a world of pleasant breezes and song birds andshady trees. 

The arrival at the inn was a great affair. No one, they wereconvinced, would take them for drapers, and there might be a prettyserving girl or a jolly old lady, or what Parsons called a "bit ofcharacter" drinking in the bar. 

There would always be weighty enquiries as to what they could have, and it would work out always at cold beef and pickles, or fried hamand eggs and shandygaff, two pints of beer and two bottles of gingerbeer foaming in a huge round-bellied jug. 

The glorious moment of standing lordly in the inn doorway, and staringout at the world, the swinging sign, the geese upon the green, theduck-pond, a waiting waggon, the church tower, a sleepy cat, the blueheavens, with the sizzle of the frying audible behind one! The keensmell of the bacon! The trotting of feet bearing the repast; the clickand clatter as the tableware is finally arranged! A clean white cloth!

"Ready, Sir!" or "Ready, Gentlemen. " Better hearing that than "ForwardPolly! look sharp!"

The going in! The sitting down! The falling to!

"Bread, O' Man?"

"Right O! Don't bag all the crust, O' Man. "

Once a simple mannered girl in a pink print dress stayed and talkedwith them as they ate; led by the gallant Parsons they professed to beall desperately in love with her, and courted her to say which shepreferred of them, it was so manifest she did prefer one and soimpossible to say which it was held her there, until a distantmaternal voice called her away. Afterwards as they left the inn shewaylaid them at the orchard corner and gave them, a little shyly, three keen yellow-green apples--and wished them to come again someday, and vanished, and reappeared looking after them as they turnedthe corner--waving a white handkerchief. All the rest of that day theydisputed over the signs of her favour, and the next Sunday they wentthere again. 

But she had vanished, and a mother of forbidding aspect afforded noexplanations. 

If Platt and Parsons and Mr. Polly live to be a hundred, they willnone of them forget that girl as she stood with a pink flush upon her, faintly smiling and yet earnest, parting the branches of the hedgerowsand reaching down apple in hand. Which of them was it, had caught herspirit to attend to them?... 

And once they went along the coast, following it as closely aspossible, and so came at last to Foxbourne, that easternmost suburb ofBrayling and Hampsted-on-the-Sea. 

Foxbourne seemed a very jolly little place to Mr. Polly thatafternoon. It has a clean sandy beach instead of the mud and pebblesand coaly _défilements_ of Port Burdock, a row of six bathingmachines, and a shelter on the parade in which the Three Ps sat aftera satisfying but rather expensive lunch that had included celery. Rowsof verandahed villas proffered apartments, they had feasted in anhotel with a porch painted white and gay with geraniums above, and theHigh Street with the old church at the head had been full of anagreeable afternoon stillness. 

"Nice little place for business, " said Platt sagely from behind hisbig pipe. 

It stuck in Mr. Polly's memory. 

V

Mr. Polly was not so picturesque a youth as Parsons. He lackedrichness in his voice, and went about in those days with his hands inhis pockets looking quietly speculative. 

He specialised in slang and the disuse of English, and he played therôle of an appreciative stimulant to Parsons. Words attracted himcuriously, words rich in suggestion, and he loved a novel and strikingphrase. His school training had given him little or no mastery of themysterious pronunciation of English and no confidence in himself. Hisschoolmaster indeed had been both unsound and variable. New words hadterror and fascination for him; he did not acquire them, he could notavoid them, and so he plunged into them. His only rule was not to bemisled by the spelling. That was no guide anyhow. He avoided everyrecognised phrase in the language and mispronounced everything inorder that he shouldn't be suspected of ignorance, but whim. 

"Sesquippledan, " he would say. "Sesquippledan verboojuice. "

"Eh?" said Platt. 

"Eloquent Rapsodooce. "

"Where?" asked Platt. 

"In the warehouse, O' Man. All among the table-cloths and blankets. Carlyle. He's reading aloud. Doing the High Froth. Spuming!Windmilling! Waw, waw! It's a sight worth seeing. He'll bark hisblessed knuckles one of these days on the fixtures, O' Man. "

He held an imaginary book in one hand and waved an eloquent gesture. "So too shall every Hero inasmuch as notwithstanding for evermore comeback to Reality, " he parodied the enthusiastic Parsons, "so that infashion and thereby, upon things and not _under_ thingsarticulariously He stands. "

"I should laugh if the Governor dropped on him, " said Platt. "He'dnever hear him coming. "

"The O' Man's drunk with it--fair drunk, " said Polly. "I never did. It's worse than when he got on to Raboloose. "

Chapter the Second

The Dismissal of Parsons

I

Suddenly Parsons got himself dismissed. 

He got himself dismissed under circumstances of peculiar violence, that left a deep impression on Mr. Polly's mind. He wondered about itfor years afterwards, trying to get the rights of the case. 

Parsons' apprenticeship was over; he had reached the status of anImprover, and he dressed the window of the Manchester department. Byall the standards available he dressed it very well. By his ownstandards he dressed it wonderfully. "Well, O' Man, " he used to say, "there's one thing about my position here, --I _can_ dress a window. "

And when trouble was under discussion he would hold that "littleFluffums"--which was the apprentices' name for Mr. Garvace, the seniorpartner and managing director of the Bazaar--would think twice beforehe got rid of the only man in the place who could make a windowful ofManchester goods _tell_. 

Then like many a fellow artist he fell a prey to theories. 

"The art of window dressing is in its infancy, O' Man--in its bloomingInfancy. All balance and stiffness like a blessed Egyptian picture. NoJoy in it, no blooming Joy! Conventional. A shop window ought to gethold of people, 'grip 'em as they go along. It stands to reason. Grip!"

His voice would sink to a kind of quiet bellow. "_Do_ they grip?"

Then after a pause, a savage roar; "_Naw_!"

"He's got a Heavy on, " said Mr. Polly. "Go it, O' Man; let's have somemore of it. "

"Look at old Morrison's dress-stuff windows! Tidy, tasteful, correct, I grant you, but Bleak!" He let out the word reinforced to a shout;"Bleak!"

"Bleak!" echoed Mr. Polly. 

"Just pieces of stuff in rows, rows of tidy little puffs, perhaps onebit just unrolled, quiet tickets. "

"Might as well be in church, O' Man, " said Mr. Polly. 

"A window ought to be exciting, " said Parsons; "it ought to make yousay: El-_lo_! when you see it. "

He paused, and Platt watched him over a snorting pipe. 

"Rockcockyo, " said Mr. Polly. 

"We want a new school of window dressing, " said Parsons, regardless ofthe comment. "A New School! The Port Burdock school. Day aftertomorrow I change the Fitzallan Street stuff. This time, it's going tobe a change. I mean to have a crowd or bust!"

And as a matter of fact he did both. 

His voice dropped to a note of self-reproach. "I've been timid, O'Man. I've been holding myself in. I haven't done myself Justice. I'vekept down the simmering, seething, teeming ideas.... All that's overnow. "

"Over, " gulped Polly. 

"Over for good and all, O' Man. "

II

Platt came to Polly, who was sorting up collar boxes. "O' Man's doinghis Blooming Window. "

"What window?"

"What he said. "

Polly remembered. 

He went on with his collar boxes with his eye on his senior, Mansfield. Mansfield was presently called away to the counting house, and instantly Polly shot out by the street door, and made a rapidtransit along the street front past the Manchester window, and so intothe silkroom door. He could not linger long, but he gathered joy, aswift and fearful joy, from his brief inspection of Parsons'unconscious back. Parsons had his tail coat off and was working withvigour; his habit of pulling his waistcoat straps to the utmostbrought out all the agreeable promise of corpulence in his youthfulframe. He was blowing excitedly and running his fingers through hishair, and then moving with all the swift eagerness of a man inspired. All about his feet and knees were scarlet blankets, not folded, notformally unfolded, but--the only phrase is--shied about. And a greatbar sinister of roller towelling stretched across the front of thewindow on which was a ticket, and the ticket said in bold blackletters: "LOOK!"

So soon as Mr. Polly got into the silk department and met Platt heknew he had not lingered nearly long enough outside. "Did you see theboards at the back?" said Platt. 

He hadn't. "The High Egrugious is fairly On, " he said, and dived downto return by devious subterranean routes to the outfitting department. 

Presently the street door opened and Platt, with an air of intensedevotion to business assumed to cover his adoption of that unusualroute, came in and made for the staircase down to the warehouse. Herolled up his eyes at Polly. "Oh _Lor_!" he said and vanished. 

Irresistible curiosity seized Polly. Should he go through the shop tothe Manchester department, or risk a second transit outside?

He was impelled to make a dive at the street door. 

"Where are you going?" asked Mansfield. 

"Lill Dog, " said Polly with an air of lucid explanation, and left himto get any meaning he could from it. 

Parsons was worth the subsequent trouble. Parsons really was extremelyrich. This time Polly stopped to take it in. 

Parsons had made a huge symmetrical pile of thick white and redblankets twisted and rolled to accentuate their woolly richness, heaped up in a warm disorder, with large window tickets inscribed inblazing red letters: "Cosy Comfort at Cut Prices, " and "Curl up andCuddle below Cost. " Regardless of the daylight he had turned up theelectric light on that side of the window to reflect a warm glow uponthe heap, and behind, in pursuit of contrasted bleakness, he was nowhanging long strips of grey silesia and chilly coloured linendusterings. 

It was wonderful, but--

Mr. Polly decided that it was time he went in. He found Platt in thesilk department, apparently on the verge of another plunge into theexterior world. "Cosy Comfort at Cut Prices, " said Polly. "Allittritions Artful Aid. "

He did not dare go into the street for the third time, and he washovering feverishly near the window when he saw the governor, Mr. Garvace, that is to say, the managing director of the Bazaar, walkingalong the pavement after his manner to assure himself all was wellwith the establishment he guided. 

Mr. Garvace was a short stout man, with that air of modest pride thatso often goes with corpulence, choleric and decisive in manner, andwith hands that looked like bunches of fingers. He was red-haired andruddy, and after the custom of such _complexions_, hairs sprang fromthe tip of his nose. When he wished to bring the power of the humaneye to bear upon an assistant, he projected his chest, knitted onebrow and partially closed the left eyelid. 

An expression of speculative wonder overspread the countenance of Mr. Polly. He felt he must _see_. Yes, whatever happened he must _see_. 

"Want to speak to Parsons, Sir, " he said to Mr. Mansfield, anddeserted his post hastily, dashed through the intervening departmentsand was in position behind a pile of Bolton sheeting as the governorcame in out of the street. 

"What on Earth do you think you are doing with that window, Parsons?"began Mr. Garvace. 

Only the legs of Parsons and the lower part of his waistcoat and anintervening inch of shirt were visible. He was standing inside thewindow on the steps, hanging up the last strip of his background fromthe brass rail along the ceiling. Within, the Manchester shop windowwas cut off by a partition rather like the partition of anold-fashioned church pew from the general space of the shop. There wasa panelled barrier, that is to say, with a little door like a pew doorin it. Parsons' face appeared, staring with round eyes at hisemployer. 

Mr. Garvace had to repeat his question. 

"Dressing it, Sir--on new lines. "

"Come out of it, " said Mr. Garvace. 

Parsons stared, and Mr. Garvace had to repeat his command. 

Parsons, with a dazed expression, began to descend the steps slowly. 

Mr. Garvace turned about. "Where's Morrison? Morrison!"

Morrison appeared. 

"Take this window over, " said Mr. Garvace pointing his bunch offingers at Parsons. "Take all this muddle out and dress it properly. "

Morrison advanced and hesitated. 

"I beg your pardon, Sir, " said Parsons with an immense politeness, "but this is _my_ window. "

"Take it all out, " said Mr. Garvace, turning away. 

Morrison advanced. Parsons shut the door with a click that arrestedMr. Garvace. 

"Come out of that window, " he said. "You can't dress it. If you wantto play the fool with a window----"

"This window's All Right, " said the genius in window dressing, andthere was a little pause. 

"Open the door and go right in, " said Mr. Garvace to Morrison. 

"You leave that door alone, Morrison, " said Parsons. 

Polly was no longer even trying to hide behind the stack of Boltonsheetings. He realised he was in the presence of forces too stupendousto heed him. 

"Get him out, " said Mr. Garvace. 

Morrison seemed to be thinking out the ethics of his position. Theidea of loyalty to his employer prevailed with him. He laid his handon the door to open it; Parsons tried to disengage his hand. Mr. Garvace joined his effort to Morrison's. Then the heart of Polly leaptand the world blazed up to wonder and splendour. Parsons disappearedbehind the partition for a moment and reappeared instantly, gripping athin cylinder of rolled huckaback. With this he smote at Morrison'shead. Morrison's head ducked under the resounding impact, but he clungon and so did Mr. Garvace. The door came open, and then Mr. Garvacewas staggering back, hand to head; his autocratic, his sacredbaldness, smitten. Parsons was beyond all control--a strangeness, amarvel. Heaven knows how the artistic struggle had strained thatrichly endowed temperament. "Say I can't dress a window, youthundering old Humbug, " he said, and hurled the huckaback at hismaster. He followed this up by hurling first a blanket, then an armfulof silesia, then a window support out of the window into the shop. Itleapt into Polly's mind that Parsons hated his own effort and was gladto demolish it. For a crowded second Polly's mind was concentratedupon Parsons, infuriated, active, like a figure of earthquake withits coat off, shying things headlong. 

Then he perceived the back of Mr. Garvace and heard his gubernatorialvoice crying to no one in particular and everybody in general: "Gethim out of the window. He's mad. He's dangerous. Get him out of thewindow. "

Then a crimson blanket was for a moment over the head of Mr. Garvace, and his voice, muffled for an instant, broke out into unwontedexpletive. 

Then people had arrived from all parts of the Bazaar. Luck, the ledgerclerk, blundered against Polly and said, "Help him!" Somerville fromthe silks vaulted the counter, and seized a chair by the back. Pollylost his head. He clawed at the Bolton sheeting before him, and if hecould have detached a piece he would certainly have hit somebody withit. As it was he simply upset the pile. It fell away from Polly, andhe had an impression of somebody squeaking as it went down. It was thesort of impression one disregards. The collapse of the pile of goodsjust sufficed to end his subconscious efforts to get something to hitsomebody with, and his whole attention focussed itself upon thestruggle in the window. For a splendid instant Parsons towered up overthe active backs that clustered about the shop window door, an activewhirl of gesture, tearing things down and throwing them, and then hewent under. There was an instant's furious struggle, a crash, a secondcrash and the crack of broken plate glass. Then a stillness and heavybreathing. 

Parsons was overpowered.... 

Polly, stepping over scattered pieces of Bolton sheeting, saw histransfigured friend with a dark cut, that was not at present bleeding, on the forehead, one arm held by Somerville and the other by Morrison. 

"You--you--you--you annoyed me, " said Parsons, sobbing for breath. 

III

There are events that detach themselves from the general stream ofoccurrences and seem to partake of the nature of revelations. Such wasthis Parsons affair. It began by seeming grotesque; it endeddisconcertingly. The fabric of Mr. Polly's daily life was torn, andbeneath it he discovered depths and terrors. 

Life was not altogether a lark. 

The calling in of a policeman seemed at the moment a pantomime touch. But when it became manifest that Mr. Garvace was in a fury ofvindictiveness, the affair took on a different complexion. The way inwhich the policeman made a note of everything and aspirated nothingimpressed the sensitive mind of Polly profoundly. Polly presentlyfound himself straightening up ties to the refrain of "'E then 'It youon the 'Ed and----"

In the dormitory that night Parsons had become heroic. He sat on theedge of the bed with his head bandaged, packing very slowly andinsisting over and again: "He ought to have left my window alone, O'Man. He didn't ought to have touched my window. "

Polly was to go to the police court in the morning as a witness. Theterror of that ordeal almost overshadowed the tragic fact that Parsonswas not only summoned for assault, but "swapped, " and packing his box. Polly knew himself well enough to know he would make a bad witness. Hefelt sure of one fact only, namely, that "'E then 'It 'Im on the 'Edand--" All the rest danced about in his mind now, and how it woulddance about on the morrow Heaven only knew. Would there be across-examination? Is it perjoocery to make a slip? People didsometimes perjuice themselves. Serious offence. 

Platt was doing his best to help Parsons, and inciting public opinionagainst Morrison. But Parsons would not hear of anything againstMorrison. "He was all right, O' Man--according to his lights, " saidParsons. "It isn't him I complain of. "

He speculated on the morrow. "I shall '_ave_ to pay a fine, " he said. "No good trying to get out of it. It's true I hit him. I hit him"--hepaused and seemed to be seeking an exquisite accuracy. His voice sankto a confidential note;--"On the head--about here. "

He answered the suggestion of a bright junior apprentice in a cornerof the dormitory. "What's the Good of a Cross summons?" he replied;"with old Corks, the chemist, and Mottishead, the house agent, and allthat lot on the Bench? Humble Pie, that's my meal to-morrow, O' Man. Humble Pie. "

Packing went on for a time. 

"But Lord! what a Life it is!" said Parsons, giving his deep notesscope. "Ten-thirty-five a man trying to do his Duty, mistaken perhaps, but trying his best; ten-forty--Ruined! Ruined!" He lifted his voiceto a shout. "Ruined!" and dropped it to "Like an earthquake. "

"Heated altaclation, " said Polly. 

"Like a blooming earthquake!" said Parsons, with the notes of a risingwind. 

He meditated gloomily upon his future and a colder chill invadedPolly's mind. "Likely to get another crib, ain't I--with assaulted theguvnor on my reference. I suppose, though, he won't give me refs. Hardenough to get a crib at the best of times, " said Parsons. 

"You ought to go round with a show, O' Man, " said Mr. Polly. 

Things were not so dreadful in the police court as Mr. Polly hadexpected. He was given a seat with other witnesses against the wall ofthe court, and after an interesting larceny case Parsons appeared andstood, not in the dock, but at the table. By that time Mr. Polly'slegs, which had been tucked up at first under his chair out of respectto the court, were extended straight before him and his hands were inhis trouser pockets. He was inventing names for the four magistrateson the bench, and had got to "the Grave and Reverend Signor with thepalatial Boko, " when his thoughts were recalled to gravity by thesound of his name. He rose with alacrity and was fielded by an expertpoliceman from a brisk attempt to get into the vacant dock. The clerkto the Justices repeated the oath with incredible rapidity. 

"Right O, " said Mr. Polly, but quite respectfully, and kissed thebook. 

His evidence was simple and quite audible after one warning from thesuperintendent of police to "speak up. " He tried to put in a good wordfor Parsons by saying he was "naturally of a choleraic disposition, "but the start and the slow grin of enjoyment upon the face of thegrave and Reverend Signor with the palatial Boko suggested that theword was not so good as he had thought it. The rest of the bench wasfrankly puzzled and there were hasty consultations. 

"You mean 'E 'As a 'Ot temper, " said the presiding magistrate. 

"I mean 'E 'As a 'Ot temper, " replied Polly, magically incapable ofaspirates for the moment. 

"You don't mean 'E ketches cholera. "

"I mean--he's easily put out. "

"Then why can't you say so?" said the presiding magistrate. 

Parsons was bound over. 

He came for his luggage while every one was in the shop, and Garvacewould not let him invade the business to say good-by. When Mr. Pollywent upstairs for margarine and bread and tea, he slipped on into thedormitory at once to see what was happening further in the Parsonscase. But Parsons had vanished. There was no Parsons, no trace ofParsons. His cubicle was swept and garnished. For the first time inhis life Polly had a sense of irreparable loss. 

A minute or so after Platt dashed in. 

"Ugh!" he said, and then discovered Polly. Polly was leaning out ofthe window and did not look around. Platt went up to him. 

"He's gone already, " said Platt. "Might have stopped to say good-by toa chap. "

There was a little pause before Polly replied. He thrust his fingerinto his mouth and gulped. 

"Bit on that beastly tooth of mine, " he said, still not looking atPlatt. "It's made my eyes water, something chronic. Any one mightthink I'd been doing a blooming Pipe, by the look of me. "

Chapter the Third

Cribs

I

Port Burdock was never the same place for Mr. Polly after Parsons hadleft it. There were no chest notes in his occasional letters, andlittle of the "Joy de Vive" got through by them. Parsons had gone, hesaid, to London, and found a place as warehouseman in a cheapoutfitting shop near St. Paul's Churchyard, where references were notrequired. It became apparent as time passed that new interests wereabsorbing him. He wrote of socialism and the rights of man, thingsthat had no appeal for Mr. Polly. He felt strangers had got hold ofhis Parsons, were at work upon him, making him into someone else, something less picturesque.... Port Burdock became a dreariness fullof faded memories of Parsons and work a bore. Platt revealed himselfalone as a tiresome companion, obsessed by romantic ideas aboutintrigues and vices and "society women. "

Mr. Polly's depression manifested itself in a general slackness. Acertain impatience in the manner of Mr. Garvace presently got upon hisnerves. Relations were becoming strained. He asked for a rise ofsalary to test his position, and gave notice to leave when it wasrefused. 

It took him two months to place himself in another situation, andduring that time he had quite a disagreeable amount of loneliness, disappointment, anxiety and humiliation. 

He went at first to stay with a married cousin who had a house atEasewood. His widowed father had recently given up the music andbicycle shop (with the post of organist at the parish church) that hadsustained his home, and was living upon a small annuity as a guestwith this cousin, and growing a little tiresome on account of somemysterious internal discomfort that the local practitioner diagnosedas imagination. He had aged with mysterious rapidity and becomeexcessively irritable, but the cousin's wife was a born manager, andcontrived to get along with him. Our Mr. Polly's status was that of aguest pure and simple, but after a fortnight of congested hospitalityin which he wrote nearly a hundred letters beginning:

_Sir:_

_Referring to your advt. In the "Christian World" for an improver inGents' outfitting I beg to submit myself for the situation. Have hadsix years' experience.... _

and upset a bottle of ink over a toilet cover and the bedroom carpet, his cousin took him for a walk and pointed out the superior advantagesof apartments in London from which to swoop upon the briefly yawningvacancy. 

"Helpful, " said Mr. Polly; "very helpful, O' Man indeed. I might havegone on there for weeks, " and packed. 

He got a room in an institution that was partly a benevolent hostelfor men in his circumstances and partly a high minded but forbiddingcoffee house and a centre for pleasant Sunday afternoons. Mr. Pollyspent a critical but pleasant Sunday afternoon in a back seat, inventing such phrases as:

"Soulful Owner of the Exorbiant Largenial Development. "--An Adam'sApple being in question. 

"Earnest Joy. "

"Exultant, Urgent Loogoobuosity. "

A manly young curate, marking and misunderstanding his preoccupiedface and moving lips, came and sat by him and entered intoconversation with the idea of making him feel more at home. Theconversation was awkward and disconnected for a minute or so, and thensuddenly a memory of the Port Burdock Bazaar occurred to Mr. Polly, and with a baffling whisper of "Lill' dog, " and a reassuring nod, herose up and escaped, to wander out relieved and observant into thevaried London streets. 

He found the collection of men he found waiting about in wholesaleestablishments in Wood Street and St. Paul's Churchyard (where theyinterview the buyers who have come up from the country) interestingand stimulating, but far too strongly charged with the suggestion ofhis own fate to be really joyful. There were men in all degreesbetween confidence and distress, and in every stage betweenextravagant smartness and the last stages of decay. There were sunnyyoung men full of an abounding and elbowing energy, before whom thesoul of Polly sank in hate and dismay. "Smart Juniors, " said Polly tohimself, "full of Smart Juniosity. The Shoveacious Cult. " There werehungry looking individuals of thirty-five or so that he decided mustbe "Proletelerians"--he had often wanted to find someone who fittedthat attractive word. Middle-aged men, "too Old at Forty, " discoursedin the waiting-rooms on the outlook in the trade; it had never been sobad, they said, while Mr. Polly wondered if "De-juiced" was apermissible epithet. There were men with an overweening sense of theirimportance, manifestly annoyed and angry to find themselves stilldisengaged, and inclined to suspect a plot, and men so faint-heartedone was terrified to imagine their behaviour when it came to aninterview. There was a fresh-faced young man with an unintelligentface who seemed to think himself equipped against the world beyond allmisadventure by a collar of exceptional height, and another whointroduced a note of gaiety by wearing a flannel shirt and a checksuit of remarkable virulence. Every day Mr. Polly looked round to markhow many of the familiar faces had gone, and the deepening anxiety(reflecting his own) on the faces that remained, and every day somenew type joined the drifting shoal. He realised how small a chance hispoor letter from Easewood ran against this hungry cluster ofcompetitors at the fountain head. 

At the back of Mr. Polly's mind while he made his observations was adisagreeable flavour of dentist's parlour. At any moment his namemight be shouted, and he might have to haul himself into the presenceof some fresh specimen of employer, and to repeat once more hispassionate protestation of interest in the business, his possession ofa capacity for zeal--zeal on behalf of anyone who would pay him ayearly salary of twenty-six pounds a year. The prospective employer would unfold his ideals of the employee. "Iwant a smart, willing young man, thoroughly willing--who won't objectto take trouble. I don't want a slacker, the sort of fellow who has tobe pushed up to his work and held there. I've got no use for him. "

At the back of Mr. Polly's mind, and quite beyond his control, theinsubordinate phrasemaker would be proffering such combinations as"Chubby Chops, " or "Chubby Charmer, " as suitable for the gentleman, very much as a hat salesman proffers hats. 

"I don't think you'd find much slackness about _me_, sir, " said Mr. Polly brightly, trying to disregard his deeper self. 

"I want a young man who means getting on. "

"Exactly, sir. Excelsior. "

"I beg your pardon?"

"I said excelsior, sir. It's a sort of motto of mine. From Longfellow. Would you want me to serve through?"

The chubby gentleman explained and reverted to his ideals, with afaint air of suspicion. "Do _you_ mean getting on?" he asked. 

"I hope so, sir, " said Mr. Polly. 

"Get on or get out, eh?"

Mr. Polly made a rapturous noise, nodded appreciation, and saidindistinctly--"_Quite_ my style. "

"Some of my people have been with me twenty years, " said the employer. "My Manchester buyer came to me as a boy of twelve. You're aChristian?"

"Church of England, " said Mr. Polly. 

"H'm, " said the employer a little checked. "For good all roundbusiness work I should have preferred a Baptist. Still--"

He studied Mr. Polly's tie, which was severely neat and businesslike, as became an aspiring outfitter. Mr. Polly's conception of his ownpose and expression was rendered by that uncontrollable phrasemongerat the back as "Obsequies Deference. "

"I am inclined, " said the prospective employer in a conclusive manner, "to look up your reference. "

Mr. Polly stood up abruptly. 

"Thank you, " said the employer and dismissed him. 

"Chump chops! How about chump chops?" said the phrasemonger with anair of inspiration. 

"I hope then to hear from you, sir, " said Mr. Polly in his bestsalesman manner. 

"If everything is satisfactory, " said the prospective employer. 

II

A man whose brain devotes its hinterland to making odd phrases andnicknames out of ill-conceived words, whose conception of life is alump of auriferous rock to which all the value is given by rare veinsof unbusinesslike joy, who reads Boccaccio and Rabelais andShakespeare with gusto, and uses "Stertoraneous Shover" and "SmartJunior" as terms of bitterest opprobrium, is not likely to make agreat success under modern business conditions. Mr. Polly dreamtalways of picturesque and mellow things, and had an instinctive hatredof the strenuous life. He would have resisted the spell ofex-President Roosevelt, or General Baden Powell, or Mr. Peter Keary, or the late Dr. Samuel Smiles, quite easily; and he loved Falstaff andHudibras and coarse laughter, and the old England of Washington Irvingand the memory of Charles the Second's courtly days. His progress wasnecessarily slow. He did not get rises; he lost situations; there wassomething in his eye employers did not like; he would have lost hisplaces oftener if he had not been at times an exceptionally brilliantsalesman, rather carefully neat, and a slow but very fairwindow-dresser. 

He went from situation to situation, he invented a great wealth ofnicknames, he conceived enmities and made friends--but none so richlysatisfying as Parsons. He was frequently but mildly and discursivelyin love, and sometimes he thought of that girl who had given him ayellow-green apple. He had an idea, amounting to a flatteringcertainty, whose youthful freshness it was had stirred her toself-forgetfulness. And sometimes he thought of Foxbourne sleepingprosperously in the sun. And he began to have moods of discomfort andlassitude and ill-temper due to the beginnings of indigestion. 

Various forces and suggestions came into his life and swayed him forlonger and shorter periods. 

He went to Canterbury and came under the influence of Gothicarchitecture. There was a blood affinity between Mr. Polly and theGothic; in the middle ages he would no doubt have sat upon ascaffolding and carved out penetrating and none too flatteringportraits of church dignitaries upon the capitals, and when hestrolled, with his hands behind his back, along the cloisters behindthe cathedral, and looked at the rich grass plot in the centre, he hadthe strangest sense of being at home--far more than he had ever beenat home before. "Portly _capóns_, " he used to murmur to himself, underthe impression that he was naming a characteristic type of medievalchurchman. 

He liked to sit in the nave during the service, and look through thegreat gates at the candles and choristers, and listen to theorgan-sustained voices, but the transepts he never penetrated becauseof the charge for admission. The music and the long vista of thefretted roof filled him with a vague and mystical happiness that hehad no words, even mispronounceable words, to express. But some of thesmug monuments in the aisles got a wreath of epithets: "Metroriousurnfuls, " "funererial claims, " "dejected angelosity, " for example. Hewandered about the precincts and speculated about the people who livedin the ripe and cosy houses of grey stone that cluster there socomfortably. Through green doors in high stone walls he caughtglimpses of level lawns and blazing flower beds; mullioned windowsrevealed shaded reading lamps and disciplined shelves of brown boundbooks. Now and then a dignitary in gaiters would pass him, "Portlycapon, " or a drift of white-robed choir boys cross a distant arcadeand vanish in a doorway, or the pink and cream of some girlish dressflit like a butterfly across the cool still spaces of the place. Particularly he responded to the ruined arches of the Benedictine'sInfirmary and the view of Bell Harry tower from the school buildings. He was stirred to read the Canterbury Tales, but he could not get onwith Chaucer's old-fashioned English; it fatigued his attention, andhe would have given all the story telling very readily for a fewadventures on the road. He wanted these nice people to live more andyarn less. He liked the Wife of Bath very much. He would have liked tohave known that woman. 

At Canterbury, too, he first to his knowledge saw Americans. 

His shop did a good class trade in Westgate Street, and he would seethem go by on the way to stare at Chaucer's "Chequers, " and then turndown Mercery Lane to Prior Goldstone's gate. It impressed him thatthey were always in a kind of quiet hurry, and very determined andmethodical people, --much more so than any English he knew. 

"Cultured Rapacicity, " he tried. 

"Vorocious Return to the Heritage. "

He would expound them incidentally to his attendant apprentices. Hehad overheard a little lady putting her view to a friend near theChristchurch gate. The accent and intonation had hung in his memory, and he would reproduce them more or less accurately. "Now does thisMarlowe monument really and truly _matter_?" he had heard the littlelady enquire. "We've no time for side shows and second rate stunts, Mamie. We want just the Big Simple Things of the place, just the BroadElemental Canterbury praposition. What is it saying to us? I want toget right hold of that, and then have tea in the very room thatChaucer did, and hustle to get that four-eighteen train back toLondon. "

He would go over these precious phrases, finding them full of anindescribable flavour. "Just the Broad Elemental Canterburypraposition, " he would repeat.... 

He would try to imagine Parsons confronted with Americans. For his ownpart he knew himself to be altogether inadequate.... 

Canterbury was the most congenial situation Mr. Polly ever foundduring these wander years, albeit a very desert so far ascompanionship went. 

III

It was after Canterbury that the universe became really disagreeableto Mr. Polly. It was brought home to him, not so much vividly as witha harsh and ungainly insistence, that he was a failure in his trade. It was not the trade he ought to have chosen, though what trade heought to have chosen was by no means clear. 

He made great but irregular efforts and produced a forced smartnessthat, like a cheap dye, refused to stand sunshine. He acquired a sortof parsimony also, in which acquisition he was helped by one or twophases of absolute impecuniosity. But he was hopeless in competitionagainst the naturally gifted, the born hustlers, the young men whomeant to get on. 

He left the Canterbury place very regretfully. He and anothercommercial gentleman took a boat one Sunday afternoon atSturry-on-the-Stour, when the wind was in the west, and sailed it veryhappily eastward for an hour. They had never sailed a boat before andit seemed simple and wonderful. When they turned they found the rivertoo narrow for tacking and the tide running out like a sluice. Theybattled back to Sturry in the course of six hours (at a shilling thefirst hour and six-pence for each hour afterwards) rowing a mile in anhour and a half or so, until the turn of the tide came to help them, and then they had a night walk to Canterbury, and found themselvesremorselessly locked out. 

The Canterbury employer was an amiable, religious-spirited man and hewould probably not have dismissed Mr. Polly if that unfortunatetendency to phrase things had not shocked him. "A Tide's a Tide, Sir, "said Mr. Polly, feeling that things were not so bad. "I've nolune-attic power to alter that. "

It proved impossible to explain to the Canterbury employer that thiswas not a highly disrespectful and blasphemous remark. 

"And besides, what good are you to me this morning, do you think?"said the Canterbury employer, "with your arms pulled out of theirsockets?"

So Mr. Polly resumed his observations in the Wood Street warehousesonce more, and had some dismal times. The shoal of fish waiting forthe crumbs of employment seemed larger than ever. 

He took counsel with himself. Should he "chuck" the outfitting? Itwasn't any good for him now, and presently when he was older and hisyouthful smartness had passed into the dulness of middle age it wouldbe worse. What else could he do?

He could think of nothing. He went one night to a music hall anddeveloped a vague idea of a comic performance; the comic men seemedviolent rowdies and not at all funny; but when he thought of the greatpit of the audience yawning before him he realised that his was analtogether too delicate talent for such a use. He was impressed by thecharm of selling vegetables by auction in one of those open shops nearLondon Bridge, but admitted upon reflection his general want oftechnical knowledge. He made some enquiries about emigration, but noneof the colonies were in want of shop assistants without capital. Hekept up his attendance in Wood Street. 

He subdued his ideal of salary by the sum of five pounds a year, andwas taken at that into a driving establishment in Clapham, which dealtchiefly in ready-made suits, fed its assistants in an undergrounddining-room and kept them until twelve on Saturdays. He found it hardto be cheerful there. His fits of indigestion became worse, and hebegan to lie awake at night and think. Sunshine and laughter seemedthings lost for ever; picnics and shouting in the moonlight. 

The chief shopwalker took a dislike to him and nagged him. "Nar thenPolly!" "Look alive Polly!" became the burthen of his days. "As smarta chap as you could have, " said the chief shopwalker, "but no _Zest_. No _Zest_! No _Vim_! What's the matter with you?"

During his night vigils Mr. Polly had a feeling--A young rabbit musthave very much the feeling, when after a youth of gambolling in sunnywoods and furtive jolly raids upon the growing wheat and excitingtriumphant bolts before ineffectual casual dogs, it finds itself atlast for a long night of floundering effort and perplexity, in anet--for the rest of its life. 

He could not grasp what was wrong with him. He made enormous effortsto diagnose his case. Was he really just a "lazy slacker" who ought to"buck up"? He couldn't find it in him to believe it. He blamed hisfather a good deal--it is what fathers are for--in putting him to atrade he wasn't happy to follow, but he found it impossible to saywhat he ought to have followed. He felt there had been somethingstupid about his school, but just where that came in he couldn't say. He made some perfectly sincere efforts to "buck up" and "shove"ruthlessly. But that was infernal--impossible. He had to admit himselfmiserable with all the misery of a social misfit, and with no clearprospect of more than the most incidental happiness ahead of him. Andfor all his attempts at self-reproach or self-discipline he felt atbottom that he wasn't at fault. 

As a matter of fact all the elements of his troubles had beenadequately diagnosed by a certain high-browed, spectacled gentlemanliving at Highbury, wearing a gold _pince_-_nez_, and writing for themost part in the beautiful library of the Reform Club. This gentlemandid not know Mr. Polly personally, but he had dealt with him generallyas "one of those ill-adjusted units that abound in a society that hasfailed to develop a collective intelligence and a collective will fororder, commensurate with its complexities. "

But phrases of that sort had no appeal for Mr. Polly. 

Chapter the Fourth

Mr. Polly an Orphan

I

Then a great change was brought about in the life of Mr. Polly by thedeath of his father. His father had died suddenly--the localpractitioner still clung to his theory that it was imagination hesuffered from, but compromised in the certificate with theappendicitis that was then so fashionable--and Mr. Polly found himselfheir to a debateable number of pieces of furniture in the house of hiscousin near Easewood Junction, a family Bible, an engraved portrait ofGaribaldi and a bust of Mr. Gladstone, an invalid gold watch, a goldlocket formerly belonging to his mother, some minor jewelry and_bric_-a-brac, a quantity of nearly valueless old clothes and aninsurance policy and money in the bank amounting altogether to the sumof three hundred and ninety-five pounds. 

Mr. Polly had always regarded his father as an immortal, as an eternalfact, and his father being of a reserved nature in his declining yearshad said nothing about the insurance policy. Both wealth andbereavement therefore took Mr. Polly by surprise and found him alittle inadequate. His mother's death had been a childish grief andlong forgotten, and the strongest affection in his life had been forParsons. An only child of sociable tendencies necessarily turns hisback a good deal upon home, and the aunt who had succeeded his motherwas an economist and furniture polisher, a knuckle rapper and sharpsilencer, no friend for a slovenly little boy. He had loved otherlittle boys and girls transitorily, none had been frequent andfamiliar enough to strike deep roots in his heart, and he had grown upwith a tattered and dissipated affectionateness that was becomingwildly shy. His father had always been a stranger, an irritablestranger with exceptional powers of intervention and comment, and anair of being disappointed about his offspring. It was shocking to losehim; it was like an unexpected hole in the universe, and the writingof "Death" upon the sky, but it did not tear Mr. Polly's heartstringsat first so much as rouse him to a pitch of vivid attention. 

He came down to the cottage at Easewood in response to an urgenttelegram, and found his father already dead. His cousin Johnsonreceived him with much solemnity and ushered him upstairs, to look ata stiff, straight, shrouded form, with a face unwontedly quiet and, asit seemed, with its pinched nostrils, scornful. 

"Looks peaceful, " said Mr. Polly, disregarding the scorn to the bestof his ability. 

"It was a merciful relief, " said Mr. Johnson. 

There was a pause. 

"Second--Second Departed I've ever seen. Not counting mummies, " saidMr. Polly, feeling it necessary to say something. 

"We did all we could. "

"No doubt of it, O' Man, " said Mr. Polly. 

A second long pause followed, and then, much to Mr. Polly's greatrelief, Johnson moved towards the door. 

Afterwards Mr. Polly went for a solitary walk in the evening light, and as he walked, suddenly his dead father became real to him. Hethought of things far away down the perspective of memory, of jollymoments when his father had skylarked with a wildly excited littleboy, of a certain annual visit to the Crystal Palace pantomime, fullof trivial glittering incidents and wonders, of his father's dreadback while customers were in the old, minutely known shop. It iscurious that the memory which seemed to link him nearest to the deadman was the memory of a fit of passion. His father had wanted to get asmall sofa up the narrow winding staircase from the little room behindthe shop to the bedroom above, and it had jammed. For a time hisfather had coaxed, and then groaned like a soul in torment and givenway to blind fury, had sworn, kicked and struck at the offending pieceof furniture and finally wrenched it upstairs, with considerableincidental damage to lath and plaster and one of the castors. Thatmoment when self-control was altogether torn aside, the shockeddiscovery of his father's perfect humanity, had left a singularimpression on Mr. Polly's queer mind. It was as if somethingextravagantly vital had come out of his father and laid a warmlypassionate hand upon his heart. He remembered that now very vividly, and it became a clue to endless other memories that had else beendispersed and confusing. 

A weakly wilful being struggling to get obdurate things roundimpossible corners--in that symbol Mr. Polly could recognise himselfand all the trouble of humanity. 

He hadn't had a particularly good time, poor old chap, and now it wasall over. Finished.... 

Johnson was the sort of man who derives great satisfaction from afuneral, a melancholy, serious, practical-minded man of five andthirty, with great powers of advice. He was the up-line ticket clerkat Easewood Junction, and felt the responsibilities of his position. He was naturally thoughtful and reserved, and greatly sustained inthat by an innate rectitude of body and an overhanging and forwardinclination of the upper part of his face and head. He was pale butfreckled, and his dark grey eyes were deeply set. His lightestinterest was cricket, but he did not take that lightly. His chiefholiday was to go to a cricket match, which he did as if he was goingto church, and he watched critically, applauded sparingly, and wasdarkly offended by any unorthodox play. His convictions upon allsubjects were taciturnly inflexible. He was an obstinate player ofdraughts and chess, and an earnest and persistent reader of the_British Weekly_. His wife was a pink, short, wilfully smiling, managing, ingratiating, talkative woman, who was determined to bepleasant, and take a bright hopeful view of everything, even when itwas not really bright and hopeful. She had large blue expressive eyesand a round face, and she always spoke of her husband as Harold. Sheaddressed sympathetic and considerate remarks about the deceased toMr. Polly in notes of brisk encouragement. "He was really quitecheerful at the end, " she said several times, with congratulatorygusto, "quite cheerful. "

She made dying seem almost agreeable. 

Both these people were resolved to treat Mr. Polly very well, and tohelp his exceptional incompetence in every possible way, and after asimple supper of ham and bread and cheese and pickles and cold appletart and small beer had been cleared away, they put him into thearmchair almost as though he was an invalid, and sat on chairs thatmade them look down on him, and opened a directive discussion of thearrangements for the funeral. After all a funeral is a distinct socialopportunity, and rare when you have no family and few relations, andthey did not want to see it spoilt and wasted. 

"You'll have a hearse of course, " said Mrs. Johnson. "Not one of themcombinations with the driver sitting on the coffin. Disrespectful Ithink they are. I can't fancy how people can bring themselves to beburied in combinations. " She flattened her voice in a manner she usedto intimate aesthetic feeling. "I _do_ like them glass hearses, " shesaid. "So refined and nice they are. "

"Podger's hearse you'll have, " said Johnson conclusively. "It's thebest in Easewood. "

"Everything that's right and proper, " said Mr. Polly. 

"Podger's ready to come and measure at any time, " said Johnson. 

"Then you'll want a mourner's carriage or two, according as to whomyou're going to invite, " said Mr. Johnson. 

"Didn't think of inviting any one, " said Polly. 

"Oh! you'll _have_ to ask a few friends, " said Mr. Johnson. "You can'tlet your father go to his grave without asking a few friends. "

"Funerial baked meats like, " said Mr. Polly. 

"Not baked, but of course you'll have to give them something. Ham andchicken's very suitable. You don't want a lot of cooking with theceremony coming into the middle of it. I wonder who Alfred ought toinvite, Harold. Just the immediate relations; one doesn't want a greatcrowd of people and one doesn't want not to show respect. "

"But he hated our relations--most of them. "

"He's not hating them _now_, " said Mrs. Johnson, "you may be sure ofthat. It's just because of that I think they ought to come--all ofthem--even your Aunt Mildred. "

"Bit vulturial, isn't it?" said Mr. Polly unheeded. 

"Wouldn't be more than twelve or thirteen people if they _all_ came, "said Mr. Johnson. 

"We could have everything put out ready in the back room and thegloves and whiskey in the front room, and while we were all at theceremony, Bessie could bring it all into the front room on a tray andput it out nice and proper. There'd have to be whiskey and sherry orport for the ladies.... "

"Where'll you get your mourning?" asked Johnson abruptly. 

Mr. Polly had not yet considered this by-product of sorrow. "Haven'tthought of it yet, O' Man. "

A disagreeable feeling spread over his body as though he wasblackening as he sat. He hated black garments. 

"I suppose I must have mourning, " he said. 

"Well!" said Johnson with a solemn smile. 

"Got to see it through, " said Mr. Polly indistinctly. 

"If I were you, " said Johnson, "I should get ready-made trousers. That's all you really want. And a black satin tie and a top hat with adeep mourning band. And gloves. "

"Jet cuff links he ought to have--as chief mourner, " said Mrs. Johnson. 

"Not obligatory, " said Johnson. 

"It shows respect, " said Mrs. Johnson. 

"It shows respect of course, " said Johnson. 

And then Mrs. Johnson went on with the utmost gusto to the details ofthe "casket, " while Mr. Polly sat more and more deeply and droopinglyinto the armchair, assenting with a note of protest to all they said. After he had retired for the night he remained for a long time perched on the edge of the sofa which was his bed, staring at the prospectbefore him. "Chasing the O' Man about up to the last, " he said. 

He hated the thought and elaboration of death as a healthy animal musthate it. His mind struggled with unwonted social problems. 

"Got to put 'em away somehow, I suppose, " said Mr. Polly. 

"Wish I'd looked him up a bit more while he was alive, " said Mr. Polly. 

II

Bereavement came to Mr. Polly before the realisation of opulence andits anxieties and responsibilities. That only dawned upon him on themorrow--which chanced to be Sunday--as he walked with Johnson beforechurch time about the tangle of struggling building enterprise thatconstituted the rising urban district of Easewood. Johnson was offduty that morning, and devoted the time very generously to theadmonitory discussion of Mr. Polly's worldly outlook. 

"Don't seem to get the hang of the business somehow, " said Mr. Polly. "Too much blooming humbug in it for my way of thinking. "

"If I were you, " said Mr. Johnson, "I should push for a first-classplace in London--take almost nothing and live on my reserves. That'swhat I should do. "

"Come the Heavy, " said Mr. Polly. 

"Get a better class reference. "

There was a pause. "Think of investing your money?" asked Johnson. 

"Hardly got used to the idea of having it yet, O' Man. "

"You'll have to do something with it. Give you nearly twenty pounds ayear if you invest it properly. "

"Haven't seen it yet in that light, " said Mr. Polly defensively. 

"There's no end of things you could put it into. "

"It's getting it out again I shouldn't feel sure of. I'm no sort ofFiancianier. Sooner back horses. "

"I wouldn't do that if I were you. "

"Not my style, O' Man. "

"It's a nest egg, " said Johnson. 

Mr. Polly made an indeterminate noise. 

"There's building societies, " Johnson threw out in a speculative tone. Mr. Polly, with detached brevity, admitted there were. 

"You might lend it on mortgage, " said Johnson. "Very safe form ofinvestment. "

"Shan't think anything about it--not till the O' Man's underground, "said Mr. Polly with an inspiration. 

They turned a corner that led towards the junction. 

"Might do worse, " said Johnson, "than put it into a small shop. "

At the moment this remark made very little appeal to Mr. Polly. Butafterwards it developed. It fell into his mind like some small obscureseed, and germinated. 

"These shops aren't in a bad position, " said Johnson. 

The row he referred to gaped in the late painful stage in buildingbefore the healing touch of the plasterer assuages the roughness ofthe brickwork. The space for the shop yawned an oblong gap below, framed above by an iron girder; "windows and fittings to suit tenant, "a board at the end of the row promised; and behind was the door spaceand a glimpse of stairs going up to the living rooms above. "Not a badposition, " said Johnson, and led the way into the establishment. "Roomfor fixtures there, " he said, pointing to the blank wall. The two menwent upstairs to the little sitting-room or best bedroom (it wouldhave to be) above the shop. Then they descended to the kitchen below. 

"Rooms in a new house always look a bit small, " said Johnson. 

They came out of the house again by the prospective back door, andpicked their way through builder's litter across the yard space to theroad again. They drew nearer the junction to where a pavement andshops already open and active formed the commercial centre ofEasewood. On the opposite side of the way the side door of aflourishing little establishment opened, and a man and his wife and alittle boy in a sailor suit came into the street. The wife was apretty woman in brown with a floriferous straw hat, and the group wasaltogether very Sundayfied and shiny and spick and span. The shopitself had a large plate-glass window whose contents were now veiledby a buff blind on which was inscribed in scrolly letters: "Rymer, Pork Butcher and Provision Merchant, " and then with voluptuouselaboration: "The World-Famed Easewood Sausage. "

Greetings were exchanged between Mr. Johnson and this distinguishedcomestible. 

"Off to church already?" said Johnson. 

"Walking across the fields to Little Dorington, " said Mr. Rymer. 

"Very pleasant walk, " said Johnson. 

"Very, " said Mr. Rymer. 

"Hope you'll enjoy it, " said Mr. Johnson. 

"That chap's done well, " said Johnson _sotto voce_ as they went on. "Came here with nothing--practically, four years ago. And as thin as alath. Look at him now!

"He's worked hard of course, " said Johnson, improving the occasion. 

Thought fell between the cousins for a space. 

"Some men can do one thing, " said Johnson, "and some another.... For aman who sticks to it there's a lot to be done in a shop. "

III

All the preparations for the funeral ran easily and happily under Mrs. Johnson's skilful hands. On the eve of the sad event she produced areserve of black sateen, the kitchen steps and a box of tin-tacks, anddecorated the house with festoons and bows of black in the bestpossible taste. She tied up the knocker with black crape, and put alarge bow over the corner of the steel engraving of Garibaldi, andswathed the bust of Mr. Gladstone, that had belonged to the deceased, with inky swathings. She turned the two vases that had views of Tivoliand the Bay of Naples round, so that these rather brilliant landscapeswere hidden and only the plain blue enamel showed, and she anticipatedthe long-contemplated purchase of a tablecloth for the front room, andsubstituted a violet purple cover for the now very worn and fadedraptures and roses in plushette that had hitherto done duty there. Everything that loving consideration could do to impart a dignifiedsolemnity to her little home was done. 

She had released Mr. Polly from the irksome duty of issuinginvitations, and as the moments of assembly drew near she sent him andMr. Johnson out into the narrow long strip of garden at the back ofthe house, to be free to put a finishing touch or so to herpreparations. She sent them out together because she had a queerlittle persuasion at the back of her mind that Mr. Polly wanted tobolt from his sacred duties, and there was no way out of the gardenexcept through the house. 

Mr. Johnson was a steady, successful gardener, and particularly goodwith celery and peas. He walked slowly along the narrow path down thecentre pointing out to Mr. Polly a number of interesting points in themanagement of peas, wrinkles neatly applied and difficulties wiselyovercome, and all that he did for the comfort and propitiation of thatfitful but rewarding vegetable. Presently a sound of nervous laughterand raised voices from the house proclaimed the arrival of the earlierguests, and the worst of that anticipatory tension was over. 

When Mr. Polly re-entered the house he found three entirely strangeyoung women with pink faces, demonstrative manners and emphaticmourning, engaged in an incoherent conversation with Mrs. Johnson. Allthree kissed him with great gusto after the ancient English fashion. "These are your cousins Larkins, " said Mrs. Johnson; "that's Annie(unexpected hug and smack), that's Miriam (resolute hug and smack), and that's Minnie (prolonged hug and smack). "

"Right-O, " said Mr. Polly, emerging a little crumpled and breathlessfrom this hearty introduction. "I see. "

"Here's Aunt Larkins, " said Mrs. Johnson, as an elderly and stouteredition of the three young women appeared in the doorway. 

Mr. Polly backed rather faint-heartedly, but Aunt Larkins was not tobe denied. Having hugged and kissed her nephew resoundingly shegripped him by the wrists and scanned his features. She had a round, sentimental, freckled face. "I should '_ave_ known 'im anywhere, " shesaid with fervour. 

"Hark at mother!" said the cousin called Annie. "Why, she's never seteyes on him before!"

"I should '_ave_ known 'im anywhere, " said Mrs. Larkins, "for Lizzie'schild. You've got her eyes! It's a Resemblance! And as for _neverseeing 'im_-- I've _dandled_ him, Miss Imperence. I've dandled him. "

"You couldn't dandle him now, Ma!" Miss Annie remarked with a shriekof laughter. 

All the sisters laughed at that. "The things you say, Annie!" saidMiriam, and for a time the room was full of mirth. 

Mr. Polly felt it incumbent upon him to say something. "_My_ dandlingdays are over, " he said. 

The reception of this remark would have convinced a far more modestcharacter than Mr. Polly that it was extremely witty. 

Mr. Polly followed it up by another one almost equally good. "My turnto dandle, " he said, with a sly look at his aunt, and convulsedeveryone. 

"Not me, " said Mrs. Larkins, taking his point, "_thank_ you, " andachieved a climax. 

It was queer, but they seemed to be easy people to get on with anyhow. They were still picking little ripples and giggles of mirth from theidea of Mr. Polly dandling Aunt Larkins when Mr. Johnson, who hadanswered the door, ushered in a stooping figure, who was at oncehailed by Mrs. Johnson as "Why! Uncle Pentstemon!" Uncle Pentstemonwas rather a shock. His was an aged rather than venerable figure; Timehad removed the hair from the top of his head and distributed a smalldividend of the plunder in little bunches carelessly and impartiallyover the rest of his features; he was dressed in a very big old frockcoat and a long cylindrical top hat, which he had kept on; he was verymuch bent, and he carried a rush basket from which protruded coyintimations of the lettuces and onions he had brought to grace theoccasion. He hobbled into the room, resisting the efforts of Johnsonto divest him of his various encumbrances, halted and surveyed thecompany with an expression of profound hostility, breathing hard. Recognition quickened in his eyes. 

"_You_ here, " he said to Aunt Larkins and then; "You _would_ be.... These your gals?"

"They are, " said Aunt Larkins, "and better gals----"

"That Annie?" asked Uncle Pentstemon, pointing a horny thumb-nail. 

"Fancy your remembering her name!"

"She mucked up my mushroom bed, the baggage!" said Uncle Pentstemonungenially, "and I give it to her to rights. Trounced her Idid--fairly. I remember her. Here's some green stuff for you, Grace. Fresh it is and wholesome. I shall be wanting the basket back and mindyou let me have it.... Have you nailed him down yet? You always was abit in front of what was needful. "

His attention was drawn inward by a troublesome tooth, and he suckedat it spitefully. There was something potent about this old man thatsilenced everyone for a moment or so. He seemed a fragment from theruder agricultural past of our race, like a lump of soil among thingsof paper. He put his basket of vegetables very deliberately on the newviolet tablecloth, removed his hat carefully and dabbled his brow, andwiped out his hat brim with a crimson and yellow pocket handkerchief. 

"I'm glad you were able to come, Uncle, " said Mrs. Johnson. 

"Oh, I _came_" said Uncle Pentstemon. "I _came_. "

He turned on Mrs. Larkins. "Gals in service?" he asked. 

"They aren't and they won't be, " said Mrs. Larkins. 

"No, " he said with infinite meaning, and turned his eye on Mr. Polly. 

"You Lizzie's boy?" he said. 

Mr. Polly was spared much self-exposition by the tumult occasioned byfurther arrivals. 

"Ah! here's May Punt!" said Mrs. Johnson, and a small woman dressed inthe borrowed mourning of a large woman and leading a very smalllong-haired observant little boy--it was his first funeral--appeared, closely followed by several friends of Mrs. Johnson who had come toswell the display of respect and made only vague, confused impressionsupon Mr. Polly's mind. (Aunt Mildred, who was an unexplained familyscandal, had declined Mrs. Johnson's hospitality. )

Everybody was in profound mourning, of course, mourning in the modernEnglish style, with the dyer's handiwork only too apparent, and hatsand jackets of the current cut. There was very little crape, and thecostumes had none of the goodness and specialisation and genuineenjoyment of mourning for mourning's sake that a similar continentalgathering would have displayed. Still that congestion of strangers inblack sufficed to stun and confuse Mr. Polly's impressionable mind. Itseemed to him much more extraordinary than anything he had expected. 

"Now, gals, " said Mrs. Larkins, "see if you can help, " and the threedaughters became confusingly active between the front room and theback. 

"I hope everyone'll take a glass of sherry and a biscuit, " said Mrs. Johnson. "We don't stand on ceremony, " and a decanter appeared in theplace of Uncle Pentstemon's vegetables. 

Uncle Pentstemon had refused to be relieved of his hat; he sat stifflydown on a chair against the wall with that venerable headdress betweenhis feet, watching the approach of anyone jealously. "Don't you gosquashing my hat, " he said. Conversation became confused and general. Uncle Pentstemon addressed himself to Mr. Polly. "You're a littlechap, " he said, "a puny little chap. I never did agree to Lizziemarrying him, but I suppose by-gones must be bygones now. I supposethey made you a clerk or something. "

"Outfitter, " said Mr. Polly. 

"I remember. Them girls pretend to be dressmakers. "

"They _are_ dressmakers, " said Mrs. Larkins across the room. 

"I _will_ take a glass of sherry. They 'old to it, you see. "

He took the glass Mrs. Johnson handed him, and poised it criticallybetween a horny finger and thumb. "You'll be paying for this, " he saidto Mr. Polly. "Here's _to_ you.... Don't you go treading on my hat, young woman. You brush your skirts against it and you take a shillin'off its value. It ain't the sort of 'at you see nowadays. "

He drank noisily. 

The sherry presently loosened everybody's tongue, and the earlycoldness passed. 

"There ought to have been a _post-mortem_, " Polly heard Mrs. Puntremarking to one of Mrs. Johnson's friends, and Miriam and anotherwere lost in admiration of Mrs. Johnson's decorations. "So very niceand refined, " they were both repeating at intervals. 

The sherry and biscuits were still being discussed when Mr. Podger, the undertaker, arrived, a broad, cheerfully sorrowful, clean-shavenlittle man, accompanied by a melancholy-faced assistant. He conversedfor a time with Johnson in the passage outside; the sense of hisbusiness stilled the rising waves of chatter and carried offeveryone's attention in the wake of his heavy footsteps to the roomabove. 

IV

Things crowded upon Mr. Polly. Everyone, he noticed, took sherry witha solemn avidity, and a small portion even was administeredsacramentally to the Punt boy. There followed a distribution of blackkid gloves, and much trying on and humouring of fingers. "_Good_gloves, " said one of Mrs. Johnson's friends. "There's a little pairthere for Willie, " said Mrs. Johnson triumphantly. Everyone seemedgravely content with the amazing procedure of the occasion. PresentlyMr. Podger was picking Mr. Polly out as Chief Mourner to go with Mrs. Johnson, Mrs. Larkins and Annie in the first mourning carriage. 

"Right O, " said Mr. Polly, and repented instantly of the alacrity ofthe phrase. 

"There'll have to be a walking party, " said Mrs. Johnson cheerfully. "There's only two coaches. I daresay we can put in six in each, butthat leaves three over. "

There was a generous struggle to be pedestrian, and the two otherLarkins girls, confessing coyly to tight new boots and displaying acertain eagerness, were added to the contents of the first carriage. 

"It'll be a squeeze, " said Annie. 

"_I_ don't mind a squeeze, " said Mr. Polly. 

He decided privately that the proper phrase for the result of thatremark was "Hysterial catechunations. "

Mr. Podger re-entered the room from a momentary supervision of thebumping business that was now proceeding down the staircase. 

"Bearing up, " he said cheerfully, rubbing his hands together. "Bearingup!"

That stuck very vividly in Mr. Polly's mind, and so did theclose-wedged drive to the churchyard, bunched in between two youngwomen in confused dull and shiny black, and the fact that the wind wasbleak and that the officiating clergyman had a cold, and sniffedbetween his sentences. The wonder of life! The wonder of everything!What had he expected that this should all be so astoundinglydifferent. 

He found his attention converging more and more upon the Larkinscousins. The interest was reciprocal. They watched him with a kind ofsuppressed excitement and became risible with his every word andgesture. He was more and more aware of their personal quality. Anniehad blue eyes and a red, attractive mouth, a harsh voice and a habitof extreme liveliness that even this occasion could not suppress;Minnie was fond, extremely free about the touching of hands andsuchlike endearments; Miriam was quieter and regarded him earnestly. Mrs. Larkins was very happy in her daughters, and they had the naïveaffectionateness of those who see few people and find a strange cousina wonderful outlet. Mr. Polly had never been very much kissed, and itmade his mind swim. He did not know for the life of him whether heliked or disliked all or any of the Larkins cousins. It was ratherattractive to make them laugh; they laughed at anything. 

There they were tugging at his mind, and the funeral tugging at hismind, too, and the sense of himself as Chief Mourner in a brand newsilk hat with a broad mourning band. He watched the ceremony andmissed his responses, and strange feelings twisted at hisheartstrings. 

V

Mr. Polly walked back to the house because he wanted to be alone. Miriam and Minnie would have accompanied him, but finding UnclePentstemon beside the Chief Mourner they went on in front. 

"You're wise, " said Uncle Pentstemon. 

"Glad you think so, " said Mr. Polly, rousing himself to talk. 

"I likes a bit of walking before a meal, " said Uncle Pentstemon, andmade a kind of large hiccup. "That sherry rises, " he remarked. "Grocer's stuff, I expect. "

He went on to ask how much the funeral might be costing, and seemedpleased to find Mr. Polly didn't know. 

"In that case, " he said impressively, "it's pretty certain to costmore'n you expect, my boy. "

He meditated for a time. "I've seen a mort of undertakers, " hedeclared; "a mort of undertakers. "

The Larkins girls attracted his attention. 

"Let's lodgin's and chars, " he commented. "Leastways she goes out tocook dinners. And look at 'em!

"Dressed up to the nines. If it ain't borryd clothes, that is. Andthey goes out to work at a factory!"

"Did you know my father much, Uncle Pentstemon?" asked Mr. Polly. 

"Couldn't stand Lizzie throwin' herself away like that, " said UnclePentstemon, and repeated his hiccup on a larger scale. 

"That _weren't_ good sherry, " said Uncle Pentstemon with the firstnote of pathos Mr. Polly had detected in his quavering voice. 

The funeral in the rather cold wind had proved wonderfully appetising, and every eye brightened at the sight of the cold collation that wasnow spread in the front room. Mrs. Johnson was very brisk, and Mr. Polly, when he re-entered the house found everybody sitting down. "Come along, Alfred, " cried the hostess cheerfully. "We can't verywell begin without you. Have you got the bottled beer ready to open, Betsy? Uncle, you'll have a drop of whiskey, I expect. "

"Put it where I can mix for myself, " said Uncle Pentstemon, placinghis hat very carefully out of harm's way on the bookcase. 

There were two cold boiled chickens, which Johnson carved with greatcare and justice, and a nice piece of ham, some brawn and a steak andkidney pie, a large bowl of salad and several sorts of pickles, andafterwards came cold apple tart, jam roll and a good piece of Stiltoncheese, lots of bottled beer, some lemonade for the ladies and milkfor Master Punt; a very bright and satisfying meal. Mr. Polly foundhimself seated between Mrs. Punt, who was much preoccupied with MasterPunt's table manners, and one of Mrs. Johnson's school friends, whowas exchanging reminiscences of school days and news of how variouscommon friends had changed and married with Mrs. Johnson. Opposite himwas Miriam and another of the Johnson circle, and also he had brawn tocarve and there was hardly room for the helpful Betsy to pass behindhis chair, so that altogether his mind would have been amplydistracted from any mortuary broodings, even if a wordy warfare aboutthe education of the modern young woman had not sprung up betweenUncle Pentstemon and Mrs. Larkins and threatened for a time, in spiteof a word or so in season from Johnson, to wreck all the harmony ofthe sad occasion. 

The general effect was after this fashion:

First an impression of Mrs. Punt on the right speaking in a refinedundertone: "You didn't, I suppose, Mr. Polly, think to '_ave_ yourpoor dear father post-mortemed--"

Lady on the left side breaking in: "I was just reminding Grace of thedear dead days beyond recall--"

Attempted reply to Mrs. Punt: "Didn't think of it for a moment. Can'tgive you a piece of this brawn, can I?"

Fragment from the left: "Grace and Beauty they used to call us and weused to sit at the same desk--"

Mrs. Punt, breaking out suddenly: "Don't _swaller_ your fork, Willy. You see, Mr. Polly, I used to '_ave_ a young gentleman, a medicalstudent, lodging with me--"

Voice from down the table: "'Am, Alfred? I didn't give you very much. "

Bessie became evident at the back of Mr. Polly's chair, strugglingwildly to get past. Mr. Polly did his best to be helpful. "Can you getpast? Lemme sit forward a bit. Urr-oo! Right O. "

Lady to the left going on valiantly and speaking to everyone who caresto listen, while Mrs. Johnson beams beside her: "There she used to sitas bold as brass, and the fun she used to make of things no one_could_ believe--knowing her now. She used to make faces at themistress through the--"

Mrs. Punt keeping steadily on: "The contents of the stummik at anyrate _ought_ to be examined. "

Voice of Mr. Johnson. "Elfrid, pass the mustid down. "

Miriam leaning across the table: "Elfrid!"

"Once she got us all kept in. The whole school!"

Miriam, more insistently: "Elfrid!"

Uncle Pentstemon, raising his voice defiantly: "Trounce 'er again Iwould if she did as much now. That I would! Dratted mischief!"

Miriam, catching Mr. Polly's eye: "Elfrid! This lady knows Canterbury. I been telling her you been there. "

Mr. Polly: "Glad you know it. "

The lady shouting: "I like it. "

Mrs. Larkins, raising her voice: "I won't '_ave_ my girls spoken of, not by nobody, old or young. "

Pop! imperfectly located. 

Mr. Johnson at large: "_Ain't_ the beer up! It's the 'eated room. "

Bessie: "Scuse me, sir, passing so soon again, but--" Restinaudible. Mr. Polly, accommodating himself: "Urr-oo! Right? RightO. "

The knives and forks, probably by some secret common agreement, clashand clatter together and drown every other sound. 

"Nobody 'ad the least idea 'ow 'E died, --nobody.... Willie, don't_golp_ so. You ain't in a 'urry, are you? You don't want to ketch atrain or anything, --golping like that!"

"D'you remember, Grace, 'ow one day we 'ad writing lesson.... "

"Nicer girls no one ever 'ad--though I say it who shouldn't. "

Mrs. Johnson in a shrill clear hospitable voice: "Harold, won't Mrs. Larkins '_ave_ a teeny bit more fowl?"

Mr. Polly rising to the situation. "Or some brawn, Mrs. Larkins?"Catching Uncle Pentstemon's eye: "Can't send _you_ some brawn, sir?"

"Elfrid!"

Loud hiccup from Uncle Pentstemon, momentary consternation followed bygiggle from Annie. 

The narration at Mr. Polly's elbow pursued a quiet but relentlesscourse. "Directly the new doctor came in he said: 'Everything must betook out and put in spirits--everything. '"

Willie, --audible ingurgitation. 

The narration on the left was flourishing up to a climax. "Ladies, "she sez, "dip their pens _in_ their ink and keep their noses out ofit!"

"Elfrid!"--persuasively. 

"Certain people may cast snacks at other people's daughters, neverhaving had any of their own, though two poor souls of wives dead andburied through their goings on--"

Johnson ruling the storm: "We don't want old scores dug up on such aday as this--"

"Old scores you may call them, but worth a dozen of them that put themto their rest, poor dears. "

"Elfrid!"--with a note of remonstrance. 

"If you choke yourself, my lord, not another mouthful do you '_ave_. No nice puddin'! Nothing!"

"And kept us in, she did, every afternoon for a week!"

It seemed to be the end, and Mr. Polly replied with an air of beingprofoundly impressed: "Really!"

"Elfrid!"--a little disheartened. 

"And then they 'ad it! They found he'd swallowed the very key tounlock the drawer--"

"Then don't let people go casting snacks!"

"_Who's_ casting snacks!"

"Elfrid! This lady wants to _know_, '_ave_ the Prossers leftCanterbury?"

"No wish to make myself disagreeable, not to God's 'umblest worm--"

"Alf, you aren't very busy with that brawn up there!"

And so on for the hour. 

The general effect upon Mr. Polly at the time was at once confusingand exhilarating; but it led him to eat copiously and carelessly, andlong before the end, when after an hour and a quarter a movement tookthe party, and it pushed away its cheese plates and rose sighing andstretching from the remains of the repast, little streaks and bands ofdyspeptic irritation and melancholy were darkening the serenity of hismind. 

He stood between the mantel shelf and the window--the blinds were upnow--and the Larkins sisters clustered about him. He battled with theoncoming depression and forced himself to be extremely facetious abouttwo noticeable rings on Annie's hand. "They ain't real, " said Anniecoquettishly. "Got 'em out of a prize packet. "

"Prize packet in trousers, I expect, " said Mr. Polly, and awakenedinextinguishable laughter. 

"Oh! the things you say!" said Minnie, slapping his shoulder. 

Suddenly something he had quite extraordinarily forgotten came intohis head. 

"Bless my heart!" he cried, suddenly serious. 

"What's the matter?" asked Johnson. 

"Ought to have gone back to shop--three days ago. They'll make no endof a row!"

"Lor, you _are_ a Treat!" said cousin Annie, and screamed withlaughter at a delicious idea. "You'll get the Chuck, " she said. 

Mr. Polly made a convulsing grimace at her. 

"I'll die!" she said. "I don't believe you care a bit!"

Feeling a little disorganized by her hilarity and a shocked expressionthat had come to the face of cousin Miriam, he made some indistinctexcuse and went out through the back room and scullery into the littlegarden. The cool air and a very slight drizzle of rain was arelief--anyhow. But the black mood of the replete dyspeptic had comeupon him. His soul darkened hopelessly. He walked with his hands inhis pockets down the path between the rows of exceptionally culturedpeas and unreasonably, overwhelmingly, he was smitten by sorrow forhis father. The heady noise and muddle and confused excitement of thefeast passed from him like a curtain drawn away. He thought of thathot and angry and struggling creature who had tugged and sworn sofoolishly at the sofa upon the twisted staircase, and who was nowlying still and hidden, at the bottom of a wall-sided oblong pitbeside the heaped gravel that would presently cover him. The stillnessof it! the wonder of it! the infinite reproach! Hatred for all thesepeople--all of them--possessed Mr. Polly's soul. 

"Hen-witted gigglers, " said Mr. Polly. 

He went down to the fence, and stood with his hands on it staring awayat nothing. He stayed there for what seemed a long time. From thehouse came a sound of raised voices that subsided, and then Mrs. Johnson calling for Bessie. 

"Gowlish gusto, " said Mr. Polly. "Jumping it in. Funererial Games. Don't hurt _him_ of course. Doesn't matter to _him_.... "

Nobody missed Mr. Polly for a long time. 

When at last he reappeared among them his eye was almost grim, butnobody noticed his eye. They were looking at watches, and Johnson wasbeing omniscient about trains. They seemed to discover Mr. Pollyafresh just at the moment of parting, and said a number of more orless appropriate things. But Uncle Pentstemon was far too worriedabout his rush basket, which had been carelessly mislaid, he seemed tothink with larcenous intentions, to remember Mr. Polly at all. Mrs. Johnson had tried to fob him off with a similar but inferiorbasket, --his own had one handle mended with string according to amethod of peculiar virtue and inimitable distinction known only tohimself--and the old gentleman had taken her attempt as the gravestreflection upon his years and intelligence. Mr. Polly was left verylargely to the Larkins trio. Cousin Minnie became shameless and keptkissing him good-by--and then finding out it wasn't time to go. Cousin Miriam seemed to think her silly, and caught Mr. Polly's eyesympathetically. Cousin Annie ceased to giggle and lapsed into anearly sentimental state. She said with real feeling that she hadenjoyed the funeral more than words could tell. 

Chapter the Fifth

Mr. Polly Takes a Vacation

I

Mr. Polly returned to Clapham from the funeral celebration preparedfor trouble, and took his dismissal in a manly spirit. 

"You've merely anti-_separated_ me by a hair, " he said politely. 

And he told them in the dormitory that he meant to take a littleholiday before his next crib, though a certain inherited reticencesuppressed the fact of the legacy. 

"You'll do that all right, " said Ascough, the head of the boot shop. "It's quite the fashion just at present. Six Weeks in Wonderful WoodStreet. They're running excursions.... "

"A little holiday"; that was the form his sense of wealth took first, that it made a little holiday possible. Holidays were his life, andthe rest merely adulterated living. And now he might take a littleholiday and have money for railway fares and money for meals and moneyfor inns. But--he wanted someone to take the holiday with. 

For a time he cherished a design of hunting up Parsons, getting him tothrow up his situation, and going with him to Stratford-on-Avon andShrewsbury and the Welsh mountains and the Wye and a lot of placeslike that, for a really gorgeous, careless, illimitable old holiday ofa month. But alas! Parsons had gone from the St. Paul's Churchyardoutfitter's long ago, and left no address. 

Mr. Polly tried to think he would be almost as happy wandering alone, but he knew better. He had dreamt of casual encounters withdelightfully interesting people by the wayside--even romanticencounters. Such things happened in Chaucer and "Bocashiew, " theyhappened with extreme facility in Mr. Richard Le Gallienne's verydetrimental book, _The Quest of the Golden Girl_, which he had read atCanterbury, but he had no confidence they would happen in England--tohim. 

When, a month later, he came out of the Clapham side door at last intothe bright sunshine of a fine London day, with a dazzling sense oflimitless freedom upon him, he did nothing more adventurous than orderthe cabman to drive to Waterloo, and there take a ticket for Easewood. 

He wanted--what _did_ he want most in life? I think his distinctivecraving is best expressed as fun--fun in companionship. He had alreadyspent a pound or two upon three select feasts to his fellowassistants, sprat suppers they were, and there had been a great andvery successful Sunday pilgrimage to Richmond, by Wandsworth andWimbledon's open common, a trailing garrulous company walking about asolemnly happy host, to wonderful cold meat and salad at the Roebuck, a bowl of punch, punch! and a bill to correspond; but now it was aweekday, and he went down to Easewood with his bag and portmanteau ina solitary compartment, and looked out of the window upon a world inwhich every possible congenial seemed either toiling in a situationor else looking for one with a gnawing and hopelessly preoccupyinganxiety. He stared out of the window at the exploitation roads ofsuburbs, and rows of houses all very much alike, either emphaticallyand impatiently _to let_ or full of rather busy unsocial people. Near Wimbledon he had a glimpse of golf links, and saw two elderlygentlemen who, had they chosen, might have been gentlemen of graceand leisure, addressing themselves to smite little hunted white ballsgreat distances with the utmost bitterness and dexterity. Mr. Pollycould not understand them. 

Every road he remarked, as freshly as though he had never observed itbefore, was bordered by inflexible palings or iron fences or severelydisciplined hedges. He wondered if perhaps abroad there might bebeautifully careless, unenclosed high roads. Perhaps after all thebest way of taking a holiday is to go abroad. 

He was haunted by the memory of what was either a half-forgottenpicture or a dream; a carriage was drawn up by the wayside and fourbeautiful people, two men and two women graciously dressed, weredancing a formal ceremonious dance full of bows and curtseys, to themusic of a wandering fiddler they had encountered. They had beendriving one way and he walking another--a happy encounter with thisobvious result. They might have come straight out of happy Theleme, whose motto is: "Do what thou wilt. " The driver had taken his twosleek horses out; they grazed unchallenged; and he sat on a stoneclapping time with his hands while the fiddler played. The shade ofthe trees did not altogether shut out the sunshine, the grass in thewood was lush and full of still daffodils, the turf they danced on wasstarred with daisies. 

Mr. Polly, dear heart! firmly believed that things like that could anddid happen--somewhere. Only it puzzled him that morning that he neversaw them happening. Perhaps they happened south of Guilford. Perhapsthey happened in Italy. Perhaps they ceased to happen a hundred yearsago. Perhaps they happened just round the corner--on weekdays when allgood Mr. Pollys are safely shut up in shops. And so dreaming ofdelightful impossibilities until his heart ached for them, he wasrattled along in the suburban train to Johnson's discreet home and thebriskly stimulating welcome of Mrs. Johnson. 

II

Mr. Polly translated his restless craving for joy and leisure intoHarold Johnsonese by saying that he meant to look about him for a bitbefore going into another situation. It was a decision Johnson verywarmly approved. It was arranged that Mr. Polly should occupy hisformer room and board with the Johnsons in consideration of a weeklypayment of eighteen shillings. And the next morning Mr. Polly went outearly and reappeared with a purchase, a safety bicycle, which heproposed to study and master in the sandy lane below the Johnsons'house. But over the struggles that preceded his mastery it is humaneto draw a veil. 

And also Mr. Polly bought a number of books, Rabelais for his own, and"The Arabian Nights, " the works of Sterne, a pile of "Tales fromBlackwood, " cheap in a second-hand bookshop, the plays of WilliamShakespeare, a second-hand copy of Belloc's "Road to Rome, " an oddvolume of "Purchas his Pilgrimes" and "The Life and Death of Jason. "

"Better get yourself a good book on bookkeeping, " said Johnson, turning over perplexing pages. 

A belated spring was now advancing with great strides to make up forlost time. Sunshine and a stirring wind were poured out over the land, fleets of towering clouds sailed upon urgent tremendous missionsacross the blue seas of heaven, and presently Mr. Polly was riding alittle unstably along unfamiliar Surrey roads, wondering always whatwas round the next corner, and marking the blackthorn and looking outfor the first white flower-buds of the may. He was perplexed anddistressed, as indeed are all right thinking souls, that there is nomay in early May. 

He did not ride at the even pace sensible people use who have markedout a journey from one place to another, and settled what time it willtake them. He rode at variable speeds, and always as though he waslooking for something that, missing, left life attractive still, but alittle wanting in significance. And sometimes he was so unreasonablyhappy he had to whistle and sing, and sometimes he was incredibly, butnot at all painfully, sad. His indigestion vanished with air andexercise, and it was quite pleasant in the evening to stroll about thegarden with Johnson and discuss plans for the future. Johnson was fullof ideas. Moreover, Mr. Polly had marked the road that led to Stamton, that rising populous suburb; and as his bicycle legs grew strong hiswheel with a sort of inevitableness carried him towards the row ofhouses in a back street in which his Larkins cousins made their hometogether. 

He was received with great enthusiasm. 

The street was a dingy little street, a _cul-de-sac_ of very smallhouses in a row, each with an almost flattened bow window and ablistered brown door with a black knocker. He poised his bright newbicycle against the window, and knocked and stood waiting, and felthimself in his straw hat and black serge suit a very pleasant andprosperous-looking figure. The door was opened by cousin Miriam. Shewas wearing a bluish print dress that brought out a kind of sallowwarmth in her skin, and although it was nearly four o'clock in theafternoon, her sleeves were tucked up, as if for some domestic work, above the elbows, showing her rather slender but very shapelyyellowish arms. The loosely pinned bodice confessed a delicatelyrounded neck. 

For a moment she regarded him with suspicion and a faint hostility, and then recognition dawned in her eyes. 

"Why!" she said, "it's cousin Elfrid!"

"Thought I'd look you up, " he said. 

"Fancy! you coming to see us like this!" she answered. 

They stood confronting one another for a moment, while Miriamcollected herself for the unexpected emergency. 

"Explorations menanderings, " said Mr. Polly, indicating the bicycle. 

Miriam's face betrayed no appreciation of the remark. 

"Wait a moment, " she said, coming to a rapid decision, "and I'll tellMa. "

She closed the door on him abruptly, leaving him a little surprised inthe street. "Ma!" he heard her calling, and swift speech followed, theimport of which he didn't catch. Then she reappeared. It seemed but aninstant, but she was changed; the arms had vanished into sleeves, theapron had gone, a certain pleasing disorder of the hair had been atleast reproved. 

"I didn't mean to shut you out, " she said, coming out upon the step. "I just told Ma. How are you, Elfrid? You _are_ looking well. I didn'tknow you rode a bicycle. Is it a new one?"

She leaned upon his bicycle. "Bright it is!" she said. "What a troubleyou must have to keep it clean!"

Mr. Polly was aware of a rustling transit along the passage, and ofthe house suddenly full of hushed but strenuous movement. 

"It's plated mostly, " said Mr. Polly. 

"What do you carry in that little bag thing?" she asked, and thenbranched off to: "We're all in a mess to-day you know. It's mycleaning up day to-day. I'm not a bit tidy I know, but I _do_ like to'_ave_ a go in at things now and then. You got to take us as you findus, Elfrid. Mercy we wasn't all out. " She paused. She was talkingagainst time. "I _am_ glad to see you again, " she repeated. 

"Couldn't keep away, " said Mr. Polly gallantly. "Had to come over andsee my pretty cousins again. "

Miriam did not answer for a moment. She coloured deeply. "You _do say_things!" she said. 

She stared at Mr. Polly, and his unfortunate sense of fitness made himnod his head towards her, regard her firmly with a round brown eye, and add impressively: "I don't say _which_ of them. "

Her answering expression made him realise for an instant the terribledangers he trifled with. Avidity flared up in her eyes. Minnie's voicecame happily to dissolve the situation. 

"'Ello, Elfrid!" she said from the doorstep. 

Her hair was just passably tidy, and she was a little effaced by a redblouse, but there was no mistaking the genuine brightness of herwelcome. 

He was to come in to tea, and Mrs. Larkins, exuberantly genial in afloriferous but dingy flannel dressing gown, appeared to confirm that. He brought in his bicycle and put it in the narrow, empty passage, andeveryone crowded into a small untidy kitchen, whose table had beenhastily cleared of the _débris_ of the midday repast. 

"You must come in 'ere, " said Mrs. Larkins, "for Miriam's turning outthe front room. I never did see such a girl for cleanin' up. Miriam's'oliday's a scrub. You've caught us on the 'Op as the sayin' is, butWelcome all the same. Pity Annie's at work to-day; she won't be 'ometill seven. "

Miriam put chairs and attended to the fire, Minnie edged up to Mr. Polly and said: "I _am_ glad to see you again, Elfrid, " with a warmcontiguous intimacy that betrayed a broken tooth. Mrs. Larkins got outtea things, and descanted on the noble simplicity of their lives, andhow he "mustn't mind our simple ways. " They enveloped Mr. Polly with ageniality that intoxicated his amiable nature; he insisted uponhelping lay the things, and created enormous laughter by pretendingnot to know where plates and knives and cups ought to go. "Who'm Igoing to sit next?" he said, and developed voluminous amusement byattempts to arrange the plates so that he could rub elbows with allthree. Mrs. Larkins had to sit down in the windsor chair by thegrandfather clock (which was dark with dirt and not going) to laugh ather ease at his well-acted perplexity. 

They got seated at last, and Mr. Polly struck a vein of humour intelling them how he learnt to ride the bicycle. He found the mererepetition of the word "wabble" sufficient to produce almostinextinguishable mirth. 

"No foreseeing little accidentulous misadventures, " he said, "nonewhatever. "

(Giggle from Minnie. )

"Stout elderly gentleman--shirt sleeves--large straw wastepaper basketsort of hat--starts to cross the road--going to the oil shop--prodicrefreshment of oil can--"

"Don't say you run 'im down, " said Mrs. Larkins, gasping. "Don't sayyou run 'im down, Elfrid!"

"Run 'im down! Not me, Madam. I never run anything down. Wabble. Ringthe bell. Wabble, wabble--"

(Laughter and tears. )

"No one's going to run him down. Hears the bell! Wabble. Gust of wind. Off comes the hat smack into the wheel. Wabble. _Lord! what's_ goingto happen? Hat across the road, old gentleman after it, bell, shriek. He ran into me. Didn't ring his bell, hadn't _got_ a bell--just raninto me. Over I went clinging to his venerable head. Down he went withme clinging to him. Oil can blump, blump into the road. "

(Interlude while Minnie is attended to for crumb in the windpipe. )

"Well, what happened to the old man with the oil can?" said Mrs. Larkins. 

"We sat about among the debreece and had a bit of an argument. I toldhim he oughtn't to come out wearing such a dangerous hat--flying atthings. Said if he couldn't control his hat he ought to leave it athome. High old jawbacious argument we had, I tell you. 'I tell you, sir--' 'I tell _you_, sir. ' Waw-waw-waw. Infuriacious. But that's thesort of thing that's constantly happening you know--on a bicycle. People run into you, hens and cats and dogs and things. Everythingseems to have its mark on you; everything. "

"_You_ never run into anything. "

"Never. Swelpme, " said Mr. Polly very solemnly. 

"Never, 'E say!" squealed Minnie. "Hark at 'im!" and relapsed into acondition that urgently demanded back thumping. "Don't be so silly, "said Miriam, thumping hard. 

Mr. Polly had never been such a social success before. They hung uponhis every word--and laughed. What a family they were for laughter! Andhe loved laughter. The background he apprehended dimly; it was verymuch the sort of background his life had always had. There was athreadbare tablecloth on the table, and the slop basin and teapot didnot go with the cups and saucers, the plates were different again, theknives worn down, the butter lived in a greenish glass dish of itsown. Behind was a dresser hung with spare and miscellaneous crockery, with a workbox and an untidy work-basket, there was an ailing muskplant in the window, and the tattered and blotched wallpaper wascovered by bright-coloured grocers' almanacs. Feminine wrappings hungfrom pegs upon the door, and the floor was covered with a variedcollection of fragments of oilcloth. The Windsor chair he sat in wasunstable--which presently afforded material for humour. "Steady, oldnag, " he said; "whoa, my friskiacious palfry!"

"The things he says! You never know what he won't say next!"

III

"You ain't talkin' of goin'!" cried Mrs. Larkins. 

"Supper at eight. "

"Stay to supper with _us_, now you '_ave_ come over, " said Mrs. Larkins, with corroborating cries from Minnie. "'Ave a bit of a walkwith the gals, and then come back to supper. You might all go and meetAnnie while I straighten up, and lay things out. "

"You're not to go touching the front room mind, " said Miriam. 

"_Who's_ going to touch yer front room?" said Mrs. Larkins, apparentlyforgetful for a moment of Mr. Polly. 

Both girls dressed with some care while Mrs. Larkins sketched thebetter side of their characters, and then the three young people wentout to see something of Stamton. In the streets their risible moodgave way to a self-conscious propriety that was particularly evidentin Miriam's bearing. They took Mr. Polly to the Stamton Wreckeryationground--that at least was what they called it--with its handsomecustodian's cottage, its asphalt paths, its Jubilee drinking fountain, its clumps of wallflower and daffodils, and so to the new cemetery anda distant view of the Surrey hills, and round by the gasworks to thecanal to the factory, that presently disgorged a surprised and radiantAnnie. 

"El-_lo_" said Annie. 

It is very pleasant to every properly constituted mind to be a centreof amiable interest for one's fellow creatures, and when one is ayoung man conscious of becoming mourning and a certain wit, and thefellow creatures are three young and ardent and sufficientlyexpressive young women who dispute for the honour of walking by one'sside, one may be excused a secret exaltation. They did dispute. 

"I'm going to '_ave_ 'im now, " said Annie. "You two've been 'aving 'imall the afternoon. Besides, I've got something to say to him. "

She had something to say to him. It came presently. "I say, " she saidabruptly. "I _did_ get them rings out of a prize packet. "

"What rings?" asked Mr. Polly. 

"What you saw at your poor father's funeral. You made out they meantsomething. They didn't--straight. "

"Then some people have been very remiss about their chances, " said Mr. Polly, understanding. 

"They haven't had any chances, " said Annie. "I don't believe in makingoneself too free with people. "

"Nor me, " said Mr. Polly. 

"I may be a bit larky and cheerful in my manner, " Annie admitted. "Butit don't _mean_ anything. I ain't that sort. "

"Right O, " said Mr. Polly. 

IV

It was past ten when Mr. Polly found himself riding back towardsEasewood in a broad moonlight with a little Japanese lantern danglingfrom his handle bar and making a fiery circle of pinkish light on andround about his front wheel. He was mightily pleased with himself andthe day. There had been four-ale to drink at supper mixed withgingerbeer, very free and jolly in a jug. No shadow fell upon theagreeable excitement of his mind until he faced the anxious andreproachful face of Johnson, who had been sitting up for him, smokingand trying to read the odd volume of "Purchas his Pilgrimes, "--aboutthe monk who went into Sarmatia and saw the Tartar carts. 

"Not had an accident, Elfrid?" said Johnson. 

The weakness of Mr. Polly's character came out in his reply. "Notmuch, " he said. "Pedal got a bit loose in Stamton, O' Man. Couldn'tride it. So I looked up the cousins while I waited. "

"Not the Larkins lot?"

"Yes. "

Johnson yawned hugely and asked for and was given friendlyparticulars. "Well, " he said, "better get to bed. I have been readingthat book of yours--rum stuff. Can't make it out quite. Quite out ofdate I should say if you asked me. "

"That's all right, O' Man, " said Mr. Polly. 

"Not a bit of use for anything I can see. "

"Not a bit. "

"See any shops in Stamton?"

"Nothing to speak of, " said Mr. Polly. "Goo-night, O' Man. "

Before and after this brief conversation his mind ran on his cousinsvery warmly and prettily in the vein of high spring. Mr. Polly hadbeen drinking at the poisoned fountains of English literature, fountains so unsuited to the needs of a decent clerk or shopman, fountains charged with the dangerous suggestion that it becomes a manof gaiety and spirit to make love, gallantly and rather carelessly. Itseemed to him that evening to be handsome and humorous and practicableto make love to all his cousins. It wasn't that he liked any of themparticularly, but he liked something about them. He liked their youthand femininity, their resolute high spirits and their interest in him. 

They laughed at nothing and knew nothing, and Minnie had lost a toothand Annie screamed and shouted, but they were interesting, intenselyinteresting. 

And Miriam wasn't so bad as the others. He had kissed them all and hadbeen kissed in addition several times by Minnie, --"oscoolatoryexercise. "

He buried his nose in his pillow and went to sleep--to dream ofanything rather than getting on in the world, as a sensible young manin his position ought to have done. 

V

And now Mr. Polly began to lead a divided life. With the Johnsons heprofessed to be inclined, but not so conclusively inclined as to beinconvenient, to get a shop for himself, to be, to use the phrase hepreferred, "looking for an opening. " He would ride off in theafternoon upon that research, remarking that he was going to "cast astrategetical eye" on Chertsey or Weybridge. But if not all roads, still a great majority of them, led by however devious ways toStamton, and to laughter and increasing familiarity. Relationsdeveloped with Annie and Minnie and Miriam. Their various characterswere increasingly interesting. The laughter became perceptibly lessabundant, something of the fizz had gone from the first opening, stillthese visits remained wonderfully friendly and upholding. Then back hewould come to grave but evasive discussions with Johnson. 

Johnson was really anxious to get Mr. Polly "into something. " His wasa reserved honest character, and he would really have preferred to seehis lodger doing things for himself than receive his money forhousekeeping. He hated waste, anybody's waste, much more than hedesired profit. But Mrs. Johnson was all for Mr. Polly's loitering. She seemed much the more human and likeable of the two to Mr. Polly. 

He tried at times to work up enthusiasm for the various avenues towell-being his discussion with Johnson opened. But they remaineddisheartening prospects. He imagined himself wonderfully smartened up, acquiring style and value in a London shop, but the picture was stiffand unconvincing. He tried to rouse himself to enthusiasm by the ideaof his property increasing by leaps and bounds, by twenty pounds ayear or so, let us say, each year, in a well-placed little shop, thecorner shop Johnson favoured. There was a certain picturesque interestin imagining cut-throat economies, but his heart told him there wouldbe little in practising them. 

And then it happened to Mr. Polly that real Romance came out ofdreamland into life, and intoxicated and gladdened him with sweetlybeautiful suggestions--and left him. She came and left him as thatdear lady leaves so many of us, alas! not sparing him one jot or onetittle of the hollowness of her retreating aspect. 

It was all the more to Mr. Polly's taste that the thing should happenas things happen in books. 

In a resolute attempt not to get to Stamton that day, he had turneddue southward from Easewood towards a country where the abundance ofbracken jungles, lady's smock, stitchwork, bluebells and grassystretches by the wayside under shady trees does much to compensate thelighter type of mind for the absence of promising "openings. " Heturned aside from the road, wheeled his machine along a faintly markedattractive trail through bracken until he came to a heap of logsagainst a high old stone wall with a damaged coping and wallflowerplants already gone to seed. He sat down, balanced the straw hat on aconvenient lump of wood, lit a cigarette, and abandoned himself toagreeable musings and the friendly observation of a cheerful littlebrown and grey bird his stillness presently encouraged to approachhim. "This is All Right, " said Mr. Polly softly to the little brownand grey bird. "Business--later. "

He reflected that he might go on this way for four or five years, andthen be scarcely worse off than he had been in his father's lifetime. 

"Vile Business, " said Mr. Polly. 

Then Romance appeared. Or to be exact, Romance became audible. 

Romance began as a series of small but increasingly vigorous movementson the other side of the wall, then as a voice murmuring, then as afalling of little fragments on the hither side and as ten pink fingertips, scarcely apprehended before Romance became startling andemphatically a leg, remained for a time a fine, slender, activelystruggling limb, brown stockinged and wearing a brown toe-worn shoe, and then--. A handsome red-haired girl wearing a short dress of bluelinen was sitting astride the wall, panting, considerably disarrangedby her climbing, and as yet unaware of Mr. Polly.... 

His fine instincts made him turn his head away and assume an attitudeof negligent contemplation, with his ears and mind alive to everysound behind him. 

"Goodness!" said a voice with a sharp note of surprise. 

Mr. Polly was on his feet in an instant. "Dear me! Can I be of anyassistance?" he said with deferential gallantry. 

"I don't know, " said the young lady, and regarded him calmly withclear blue eyes. 

"I didn't know there was anyone here, " she added. 

"Sorry, " said Mr. Polly, "if I am intrudaceous. I didn't know youdidn't want me to be here. "

She reflected for a moment on the word. "It isn't that, " she said, surveying him. 

"I oughtn't to get over the wall, " she explained. "It's out of bounds. At least in term time. But this being holidays--"

Her manner placed the matter before him. 

"Holidays is different, " said Mr. Polly. 

"I don't want to actually _break_ the rules, " she said. 

"Leave them behind you, " said Mr. Polly with a catch of the breath, "where they are safe"; and marvelling at his own wit and daring, andindeed trembling within himself, he held out a hand for her. 

She brought another brown leg from the unknown, and arranged her skirtwith a dexterity altogether feminine. "I think I'll stay on the wall, "she decided. "So long as some of me's in bounds--"

She continued to regard him with eyes that presently joined dancing inan irresistible smile of satisfaction. Mr. Polly smiled in return. 

"You bicycle?" she said. 

Mr. Polly admitted the fact, and she said she did too. 

"All my people are in India, " she explained. "It's beastly rot--I meanit's frightfully dull being left here alone. "

"All _my_ people, " said Mr. Polly, "are in Heaven!"

"I say!"

"Fact!" said Mr. Polly. "Got nobody. "

"And that's why--" she checked her artless comment on his mourning. "Isay, " she said in a sympathetic voice, "I _am_ sorry. I really am. Wasit a fire or a ship--or something?"

Her sympathy was very delightful. He shook his head. "The ordinarytable of mortality, " he said. "First one and then another. "

Behind his outward melancholy, delight was dancing wildly. "Are _you_lonely?" asked the girl. 

Mr. Polly nodded. 

"I was just sitting there in melancholy rectrospectatiousness, " hesaid, indicating the logs, and again a swift thoughtfulness sweptacross her face. 

"There's no harm in our talking, " she reflected. 

"It's a kindness. Won't you get down?"

She reflected, and surveyed the turf below and the scene around andhim. 

"I'll stay on the wall, " she said. "If only for bounds' sake. "

She certainly looked quite adorable on the wall. She had a fine neckand pointed chin that was particularly admirable from below, andpretty eyes and fine eyebrows are never so pretty as when they lookdown upon one. But no calculation of that sort, thank Heaven, wasgoing on beneath her ruddy shock of hair. 

VI

"Let's talk, " she said, and for a time they were both tongue-tied. 

Mr. Polly's literary proclivities had taught him that under suchcircumstances a strain of gallantry was demanded. And something in hisblood repeated that lesson. 

"You make me feel like one of those old knights, " he said, "who rodeabout the country looking for dragons and beautiful maidens andchivalresque adventures. "

"Oh!" she said. "Why?"

"Beautiful maiden, " he said. 

She flushed under her freckles with the quick bright flush thosepretty red-haired people have. "Nonsense!" she said. 

"You are. I'm not the first to tell you that. A beautiful maidenimprisoned in an enchanted school. "

"_You_ wouldn't think it enchanted!"

"And here am I--clad in steel. Well, not exactly, but my fiery warhorse is anyhow. Ready to absquatulate all the dragons and rescueyou. "

She laughed, a jolly laugh that showed delightfully gleaming teeth. "Iwish you could _see_ the dragons, " she said with great enjoyment. Mr. Polly felt they were a sun's distance from the world of everyday. 

"Fly with me!" he dared. 

She stared for a moment, and then went off into peals of laughter. "You _are_ funny!" she said. "Why, I haven't known you five minutes. "

"One doesn't--in this medevial world. My mind is made up, anyhow. "

He was proud and pleased with his joke, and quick to change his keyneatly. "I wish one could, " he said. 

"I wonder if people ever did!"

"If there were people like you. "

"We don't even know each other's names, " she remarked with a descentto matters of fact. 

"Yours is the prettiest name in the world. "

"How do you know?"

"It must be--anyhow. "

"It _is_ rather pretty you know--it's Christabel. "

"What did I tell you?"

"And yours?"

"Poorer than I deserve. It's Alfred. "

"_I_ can't call you Alfred. "

"Well, Polly. "

"It's a girl's name!"

For a moment he was out of tune. "I wish it was!" he said, and couldhave bitten out his tongue at the Larkins sound of it. 

"I shan't forget it, " she remarked consolingly. 

"I say, " she said in the pause that followed. "Why are you ridingabout the country on a bicycle?"

"I'm doing it because I like it. "

She sought to estimate his social status on her limited basis ofexperience. He stood leaning with one hand against the wall, lookingup at her and tingling with daring thoughts. He was a littleish man, you must remember, but neither mean-looking nor unhandsome in thosedays, sunburnt by his holiday and now warmly flushed. He had aninspiration to simple speech that no practised trifler with love couldhave bettered. "There _is_ love at first sight, " he said, and said itsincerely. 

She stared at him with eyes round and big with excitement. 

"I think, " she said slowly, and without any signs of fear or retreat, "I ought to get back over the wall. "

"It needn't matter to you, " he said. "I'm just a nobody. But I knowyou are the best and most beautiful thing I've ever spoken to. " Hisbreath caught against something. "No harm in telling you that, " hesaid. 

"I should have to go back if I thought you were serious, " she saidafter a pause, and they both smiled together. 

After that they talked in a fragmentary way for some time. The blueeyes surveyed Mr. Polly with kindly curiosity from under a broad, finely modelled brow, much as an exceptionally intelligent cat mightsurvey a new sort of dog. She meant to find out all about him. Sheasked questions that riddled the honest knight in armour below, andprobed ever nearer to the hateful secret of the shop and his normalservitude. And when he made a flourish and mispronounced a word athoughtful shade passed like the shadow of a cloud across her face. 

"Boom!" came the sound of a gong. 

"Lordy!" cried the girl and flashed a pair of brown legs at him andwas gone. 

Then her pink finger tips reappeared, and the top of her red hair. "Knight!" she cried from the other side of the wall. "Knight there!"

"Lady!" he answered. 

"Come again to-morrow!"

"At your command. But----"

"Yes?"

"Just one finger. "

"What do you mean?"

"To kiss. "

The rustle of retreating footsteps and silence.... 

But after he had waited next day for twenty minutes she reappeared, alittle out of breath with the effort to surmount the wall--and headfirst this time. And it seemed to him she was lighter and more daringand altogether prettier than the dreams and enchanted memories thathad filled the interval. 

VII

From first to last their acquaintance lasted ten days, but into thattime Mr. Polly packed ten years of dreams. 

"He don't seem, " said Johnson, "to take a serious interest inanything. That shop at the corner's bound to be snapped up if he don'tlook out. "

The girl and Mr. Polly did not meet on every one of those ten days;one was Sunday and she could not come, and on the eighth the schoolreassembled and she made vague excuses. All their meetings amounted tothis, that she sat on the wall, more or less in bounds as sheexpressed it, and let Mr. Polly fall in love with her and try toexpress it below. She sat in a state of irresponsible exaltation, watching him and at intervals prodding a vivisecting point ofencouragement into him--with that strange passive cruelty which isnatural to her sex and age. 

And Mr. Polly fell in love, as though the world had given way beneathhim and he had dropped through into another, into a world of luminousclouds and of desolate hopeless wildernesses of desiring and of wildvalleys of unreasonable ecstasies, a world whose infinite miserieswere finer and in some inexplicable way sweeter than the purest goldof the daily life, whose joys--they were indeed but the merest remoteglimpses of joy--were brighter than a dying martyr's vision of heaven. Her smiling face looked down upon him out of heaven, her careless posewas the living body of life. It was senseless, it was utterly foolish, but all that was best and richest in Mr. Polly's nature broke like awave and foamed up at that girl's feet, and died, and never touchedher. And she sat on the wall and marvelled at him and was amused, andonce, suddenly moved and wrung by his pleading, she bent down rathershamefacedly and gave him a freckled, tennis-blistered little paw tokiss. And she looked into his eyes and suddenly felt a perplexity, acurious swimming of the mind that made her recoil and stiffen, andwonder afterwards and dream.... 

And then with some dim instinct of self-protection, she went and toldher three best friends, great students of character all, of thisremarkable phenomenon she had discovered on the other side of thewall. 

"Look here, " said Mr. Polly, "I'm wild for the love of you! I can'tkeep up this gesticulations game any more! I'm not a Knight. Treat meas a human man. You may sit up there smiling, but I'd die in tormentsto have you mine for an hour. I'm nobody and nothing. But look here!Will you wait for me for five years? You're just a girl yet, and itwouldn't be hard. "

"Shut up!" said Christabel in an aside he did not hear, and somethinghe did not see touched her hand. 

"I've always been just dilletentytating about till now, but I couldwork. I've just woke up. Wait till I've got a chance with the moneyI've got. "

"But you haven't got much money!"

"I've got enough to take a chance with, some sort of a chance. I'dfind a chance. I'll do that anyhow. I'll go away. I mean what Isay--I'll stop trifling and shirking. If I don't come back it won'tmatter. If I do----"

Her expression had become uneasy. Suddenly she bent down towards him. 

"Don't!" she said in an undertone. 

"Don't--what?"

"Don't go on like this! You're different! Go on being the knight whowants to kiss my hand as his--what did you call it?" The ghost of asmile curved her face. "Gurdrum!"

"But----!"

Then through a pause they both stared at each other, listening. 

A muffled tumult on the other side of the wall asserted itself. 

"Shut _up_, Rosie!" said a voice. 

"I tell you I will see! I can't half hear. Give me a leg up!"

"You Idiot! He'll see you. You're spoiling everything. "

The bottom dropped out of Mr. Polly's world. He felt as people mustfeel who are going to faint. 

"You've got someone--" he said aghast. 

She found life inexpressible to Mr. Polly. She addressed some unseenhearers. "You filthy little Beasts!" she cried with a sharp note ofagony in her voice, and swung herself back over the wall and vanished. There was a squeal of pain and fear, and a swift, fierce altercation. 

For a couple of seconds he stood agape. 

Then a wild resolve to confirm his worst sense of what was on theother side of the wall made him seize a log, put it against thestones, clutch the parapet with insecure fingers, and lug himself to amomentary balance on the wall. 

Romance and his goddess had vanished. 

A red-haired girl with a pigtail was wringing the wrist of aschoolfellow who shrieked with pain and cried: "Mercy! mercy! Ooo!Christabel!"

"You idiot!" cried Christabel. "You giggling Idiot!"

Two other young ladies made off through the beech trees from thisoutburst of savagery. 

Then the grip of Mr. Polly's fingers gave, and he hit his chin againstthe stones and slipped clumsily to the ground again, scraping hischeek against the wall and hurting his shin against the log by whichhe had reached the top. Just for a moment he crouched against thewall. 

He swore, staggered to the pile of logs and sat down. 

He remained very still for some time, with his lips pressed together. 

"Fool, " he said at last; "you Blithering Fool!" and began to rub hisshin as though he had just discovered its bruises. 

Afterwards he found his face was wet with blood--which was none theless red stuff from the heart because it came from slightabrasions. 

Chapter the Sixth

Miriam

I

It is an illogical consequence of one human being's ill-treatment thatwe should fly immediately to another, but that is the way with us. Itseemed to Mr. Polly that only a human touch could assuage the smart ofhis humiliation. Moreover it had for some undefined reason to be afeminine touch, and the number of women in his world was limited. 

He thought of the Larkins family--the Larkins whom he had not beennear now for ten long days. Healing people they seemed to himnow--healing, simple people. They had good hearts, and he hadneglected them for a mirage. If he rode over to them he would be ableto talk nonsense and laugh and forget the whirl of memories andthoughts that was spinning round and round so unendurably in hisbrain. 

"Law!" said Mrs. Larkins, "come in! You're quite a stranger, Elfrid!"

"Been seeing to business, " said the unveracious Polly. 

"None of 'em ain't at 'ome, but Miriam's just out to do a bit ofshopping. Won't let me shop, she won't, because I'm so keerless. She'sa wonderful manager, that girl. Minnie's got some work at the carpetplace. 'Ope it won't make 'er ill again. She's a loving deliket sort, is Minnie.... Come into the front parlour. It's a bit untidy, but yougot to take us as you find us. Wot you been doing to your face?"

"Bit of a scrase with the bicycle, " said Mr. Polly. 

"Trying to pass a carriage on the on side, and he drew up and ran meagainst a wall. "

Mrs. Larkins scrutinised it. "You ought to '_ave_ someone look afteryour scrases, " she said. "That's all red and rough. It ought to becold-creamed. Bring your bicycle into the passage and come in. "

She "straightened up a bit, " that is to say she increased thedislocation of a number of scattered articles, put a workbasket on thetop of several books, swept two or three dogs'-eared numbers of the_Lady's Own Novelist_ from the table into the broken armchair, andproceeded to sketch together the tea-things with various suchinterpolations as: "Law, if I ain't forgot the butter!" All the whileshe talked of Annie's good spirits and cleverness with her millinery, and of Minnie's affection and Miriam's relative love of order andmanagement. Mr. Polly stood by the window uneasily and thought howgood and sincere was the Larkins tone. It was well to be back again. 

"You're a long time finding that shop of yours, " said Mrs. Larkins. 

"Don't do to be precipitous, " said Mr. Polly. 

"No, " said Mrs. Larkins, "once you got it you got it. Like choosing a'usband. You better see you got it good. I kept Larkins 'esitating twoyears I did, until I felt sure of him. A 'ansom man 'e was as you cansee by the looks of the girls, but 'ansom is as 'ansom does. You'dlike a bit of jam to your tea, I expect? I 'ope they'll keep _their_men waiting when the time comes. I tell them if they think of marryingit only shows they don't know when they're well off. Here's Miriam!"

Miriam entered with several parcels in a net, and a peevishexpression. "Mother, " she said, "you might '_ave_ prevented my goingout with the net with the broken handle. I've been cutting my fingerswith the string all the way 'ome. " Then she discovered Mr. Polly andher face brightened. 

"Ello, Elfrid!" she said. "Where you been all this time?"

"Looking round, " said Mr. Polly. 

"Found a shop?"

"One or two likely ones. But it takes time. "

"You've got the wrong cups, Mother. "

She went into the kitchen, disposed of her purchases, and returnedwith the right cups. "What you done to your face, Elfrid?" she asked, and came and scrutinised his scratches. "All rough it is. "

He repeated his story of the accident, and she was sympathetic in apleasant homely way. 

"You are quiet today, " she said as they sat down to tea. 

"Meditatious, " said Mr. Polly. 

Quite by accident he touched her hand on the table, and she answeredhis touch. 

"Why not?" thought Mr. Polly, and looking up, caught Mrs. Larkins' eyeand flushed guiltily. But Mrs. Larkins, with unusual restraint, saidnothing. She merely made a grimace, enigmatical, but in its essencefriendly. 

Presently Minnie came in with some vague grievance against the managerof the carpet-making place about his method of estimating piece work. Her account was redundant, defective and highly technical, butredeemed by a certain earnestness. "I'm never within sixpence of whatI reckon to be, " she said. "It's a bit too 'ot. " Then Mr. Polly, feeling that he was being conspicuously dull, launched into adescription of the shop he was looking for and the shops he had seen. His mind warmed up as he talked. 

"Found your tongue again, " said Mrs. Larkins. He had. He began toembroider the subject and work upon it. For the first time it assumedpicturesque and desirable qualities in his mind. It stimulated him tosee how readily and willingly they accepted his sketches. Bright ideasappeared in his mind from nowhere. He was suddenly enthusiastic. 

"When I get this shop of mine I shall have a cat. Must make a home fora cat, you know. "

"What, to catch the mice?" said Mrs. Larkins. 

"No--sleep in the window. A venerable _signor_ of a cat. Tabby. Cat'sno good if it isn't tabby. Cat I'm going to have, and a canary! Didn'tthink of that before, but a cat and a canary seem to go, you know. Summer weather I shall sit at breakfast in the little room behind theshop, sun streaming in the window to rights, cat on a chair, canarysinging and--Mrs. Polly.... "

"Ello!" said Mrs. Larkins. 

"Mrs. Polly frying an extra bit of bacon. Bacon singing, cat singing, canary singing. Kettle singing. Mrs. Polly--"

"But who's Mrs. Polly going to be?" said Mrs. Larkins. 

"Figment of the imagination, ma'am, " said Mr. Polly. "Put in to fillup picture. No face to figure as yet. Still, that's how it will be, Ican assure you. I think I must have a bit of garden. Johnson's the manfor a garden of course, " he said, going off at a tangent, "but I don'tmean a fierce sort of garden. Earnest industry. Anxious moments. Fervous digging. Shan't go in for that sort of garden, ma'am. No! Toomuch backache for me. My garden will be just a patch of 'sturtiums andsweet pea. Red brick yard, clothes' line. Trellis put up in odd time. Humorous wind vane. Creeper up the back of the house. "

"Virginia creeper?" asked Miriam. 

"Canary creeper, " said Mr. Polly. 

"You _will_ '_ave_ it nice, " said Miriam, desirously. 

"Rather, " said Mr. Polly. "Ting-a-ling-a-ling. _Shop!_"

He straightened himself up and then they all laughed. 

"Smart little shop, " he said. "Counter. Desk. All complete. Umbrellastand. Carpet on the floor. Cat asleep on the counter. Ties and hoseon a rail over the counter. All right. "

"I wonder you don't set about it right off, " said Miriam. 

"Mean to get it exactly right, m'am, " said Mr. Polly. 

"Have to have a tomcat, " said Mr. Polly, and paused for an expectantmoment. "Wouldn't do to open shop one morning, you know, and find thewindow full of kittens. Can't sell kittens.... "

When tea was over he was left alone with Minnie for a few minutes, andan odd intimation of an incident occurred that left Mr. Polly ratherscared and shaken. A silence fell between them--an uneasy silence. Hesat with his elbows on the table looking at her. All the way fromEasewood to Stamton his erratic imagination had been running upon neatways of proposing marriage. I don't know why it should have done, butit had. It was a kind of secret exercise that had not had any definiteaim at the time, but which now recurred to him with extraordinaryforce. He couldn't think of anything in the world that wasn't thegambit to a proposal. It was almost irresistibly fascinating to thinkhow immensely a few words from him would excite and revolutioniseMinnie. She was sitting at the table with a workbasket among the teathings, mending a glove in order to avoid her share of clearing away. 

"I like cats, " said Minnie after a thoughtful pause. "I'm alwayssaying to mother, 'I wish we 'ad a cat. ' But we couldn't '_ave_ a cat'ere--not with no yard. "

"Never had a cat myself, " said Mr. Polly. "No!"

"I'm fond of them, " said Minnie. 

"I like the look of them, " said Mr. Polly. "Can't exactly call myselffond. "

"I expect I shall get one some day. When about you get your shop. "

"I shall have my shop all right before long, " said Mr. Polly. "Trustme. Canary bird and all. "

She shook her head. "I shall get a cat first, " she said. "You nevermean anything you say. "

"Might get 'em together, " said Mr. Polly, with his sense of a neatthing outrunning his discretion. 

"Why! 'ow d'you mean?" said Minnie, suddenly alert. 

"Shop and cat thrown in, " said Mr. Polly in spite of himself, and hishead swam and he broke out into a cold sweat as he said it. 

He found her eyes fixed on him with an eager expression. "Mean tosay--" she began as if for verification. He sprang to his feet, andturned to the window. "Little dog!" he said, and moved doorwardhastily. "Eating my bicycle tire, I believe, " he explained. And soescaped. 

He saw his bicycle in the hall and cut it dead. 

He heard Mrs. Larkins in the passage behind him as he opened the frontdoor. 

He turned to her. "Thought my bicycle was on fire, " he said. "Outside. Funny fancy! All right, reely. Little dog outside.... Miriam ready?"

"What for?"

"To go and meet Annie. "

Mrs. Larkins stared at him. "You're stopping for a bit of supper?"

"If I may, " said Mr. Polly. 

"You're a rum un, " said Mrs. Larkins, and called: "Miriam!"

Minnie appeared at the door of the room looking infinitely perplexed. "There ain't a little dog anywhere, Elfrid, " she said. 

Mr. Polly passed his hand over his brow. "I had a most curioussensation. Felt exactly as though something was up somewhere. That'swhy I said Little Dog. All right now. "

He bent down and pinched his bicycle tire. 

"You was saying something about a cat, Elfrid, " said Minnie. 

"Give you one, " he answered without looking up. "The very day my shopis opened. "

He straightened himself up and smiled reassuringly. "Trust me, " hesaid. 

II

When, after imperceptible manoeuvres by Mrs. Larkins, he found himselfstarting circuitously through the inevitable recreation ground withMiriam to meet Annie, he found himself quite unable to avoid the topicof the shop that had now taken such a grip upon him. A sense of dangeronly increased the attraction. Minnie's persistent disposition toaccompany them had been crushed by a novel and violent and urgentlyexpressed desire on the part of Mrs. Larkins to see her do somethingin the house sometimes.... 

"You really think you'll open a shop?" asked Miriam. 

"I hate cribs, " said Mr. Polly, adopting a moderate tone. "In a shopthere's this drawback and that, but one is one's own master. "

"That wasn't all talk?"

"Not a bit of it. "

"After all, " he went on, "a little shop needn't be so bad. "

"It's a 'ome, " said Miriam. 

"It's a home. "

Pause. 

"There's no need to keep accounts and that sort of thing if there's noassistant. I daresay I could run a shop all right if I wasn'tinterfered with. "

"I should like to see you in your shop, " said Miriam. "I expect you'dkeep everything tremendously neat. "

The conversation flagged. 

"Let's sit down on one of those seats over there, " said Miriam. "Wherewe can see those blue flowers. "

They did as she suggested, and sat down in a corner where a triangularbed of stock and delphinium brightened the asphalted traceries of theRecreation Ground. 

"I wonder what they call those flowers, " she said. "I always likethem. They're handsome. "

"Delphicums and larkspurs, " said Mr. Polly. "They used to be in thepark at Port Burdock. 

"Floriferous corner, " he added approvingly. 

He put an arm over the back of the seat, and assumed a morecomfortable attitude. He glanced at Miriam, who was sitting in a lax, thoughtful pose with her eyes on the flowers. She was wearing her olddress, she had not had time to change, and the blue tones of her olddress brought out a certain warmth in her skin, and her poseexaggerated whatever was feminine in her rather lean and insufficientbody, and rounded her flat chest delusively. A little line of lightlay along her profile. The afternoon was full of transfiguringsunshine, children were playing noisily in the adjacent sandpit, someJudas trees were brightly abloom in the villa gardens that borderedthe Recreation Ground, and all the place was bright with touches ofyoung summer colour. It all merged with the effect of Miriam in Mr. Polly's mind. 

Her thoughts found speech. "One did ought to be happy in a shop, " shesaid with a note of unusual softness in her voice. 

It seemed to him that she was right. One did ought to be happy in ashop. Folly not to banish dreams that made one ache of townless woodsand bracken tangles and red-haired linen-clad figures sitting indappled sunshine upon grey and crumbling walls and looking queenlydown on one with clear blue eyes. Cruel and foolish dreams they were, that ended in one's being laughed at and made a mock of. There was nomockery here. 

"A shop's such a respectable thing to be, " said Miriam thoughtfully. 

"_I_ could be happy in a shop, " he said. 

His sense of effect made him pause. 

"If I had the right company, " he added. 

She became very still. 

Mr. Polly swerved a little from the conversational ice-run upon whichhe had embarked. 

"I'm not such a blooming Geezer, " he said, "as not to be able to sellgoods a bit. One has to be nosy over one's buying of course. But Ishall do all right. "

He stopped, and felt falling, falling through the aching silence thatfollowed. 

"If you get the right company, " said Miriam. 

"I shall get that all right. "

"You don't mean you've got someone--"

He found himself plunging. 

"I've got someone in my eye, this minute, " he said. 

"Elfrid!" she said, turning on him. "You don't mean--"

Well, _did_ he mean? "I do!" he said. 

"Not reely!" She clenched her hands to keep still. 

He took the conclusive step. 

"Well, you and me, Miriam, in a little shop--with a cat and acanary--" He tried too late to get back to a hypothetical note. "Justsuppose it!"

"You mean, " said Miriam, "you're in love with me, Elfrid?"

What possible answer can a man give to such a question but "Yes!"

Regardless of the public park, the children in the sandpit andeveryone, she bent forward and seized his shoulder and kissed him onthe lips. Something lit up in Mr. Polly at the touch. He put an armabout her and kissed her back, and felt an irrevocable act was sealed. He had a curious feeling that it would be very satisfying to marry andhave a wife--only somehow he wished it wasn't Miriam. Her lips werevery pleasant to him, and the feel of her in his arm. 

They recoiled a little from each other and sat for a moment, flushedand awkwardly silent. His mind was altogether incapable of controllingits confusion. 

"I didn't dream, " said Miriam, "you cared--. Sometimes I thought itwas Annie, sometimes Minnie--"

"Always liked you better than them, " said Mr. Polly. 

"I loved you, Elfrid, " said Miriam, "since ever we met at your poorfather's funeral. Leastways I _would_ have done, if I had thought. Youdidn't seem to mean anything you said. 

"I _can't_ believe it!" she added. 

"Nor I, " said Mr. Polly. 

"You mean to marry me and start that little shop--"

"Soon as ever I find it, " said Mr. Polly. 

"I had no more idea when I came out with you--"

"Nor me!"

"It's like a dream. "

They said no more for a little while. 

"I got to pinch myself to think it's real, " said Miriam. "What they'lldo without me at 'ome I can't imagine. When I tell them--"

For the life of him Mr. Polly could not tell whether he was fullest oftender anticipations or regretful panic. 

"Mother's no good at managing--not a bit. Annie don't care for 'ousework and Minnie's got no 'ed for it. What they'll do without me Ican't imagine. "

"They'll have to do without you, " said Mr. Polly, sticking to hisguns. 

A clock in the town began striking. 

"Lor'!" said Miriam, "we shall miss Annie--sitting 'ere andlove-making!"

She rose and made as if to take Mr. Polly's arm. But Mr. Polly feltthat their condition must be nakedly exposed to the ridicule of theworld by such a linking, and evaded her movement. 

Annie was already in sight before a flood of hesitation and terrorsassailed Mr. Polly. 

"Don't tell anyone yet a bit, " he said. 

"Only mother, " said Miriam firmly. 

III

Figures are the most shocking things in the world. The prettiestlittle squiggles of black--looked at in the right light, and yetconsider the blow they can give you upon the heart. You return from alittle careless holiday abroad, and turn over the page of a newspaper, and against the name of that distant, vague-conceived railway inmortgages upon which you have embarked the bulk of your capital, yousee instead of the familiar, persistent 95-6 (varying at most to 93_ex. Div. _) this slightly richer arrangement of marks: 76 1/2--78 1/2. 

It is like the opening of a pit just under your feet!

So, too, Mr. Polly's happy sense of limitless resources wasobliterated suddenly by a vision of this tracery:

"298"

instead of the

"350"

he had come to regard as the fixed symbol of his affluence. 

It gave him a disagreeable feeling about the diaphragm, akin in aremote degree to the sensation he had when the perfidy of thered-haired schoolgirl became plain to him. It made his brow moist. 

"Going down a vortex!" he whispered. 

By a characteristic feat of subtraction he decided that he must havespent sixty-two pounds. 

"Funererial baked meats, " he said, recalling possible items. 

The happy dream in which he had been living of long warm days, of openroads, of limitless unchecked hours, of infinite time to look abouthim, vanished like a thing enchanted. He was suddenly back in the hardold economic world, that exacts work, that limits range, thatdiscourages phrasing and dispels laughter. He saw Wood Street and itsfearful suspenses yawning beneath his feet. 

And also he had promised to marry Miriam, and on the whole ratherwanted to. 

He was distraught at supper. Afterwards, when Mrs. Johnson had gone tobed with a slight headache, he opened a conversation with Johnson. 

"It's about time, O' Man, I saw about doing something, " he said. "Riding about and looking at shops, all very debonnairious, O' Man, but it's time I took one for keeps. "

"What did I tell you?" said Johnson. 

"How do you think that corner shop of yours will figure out?" Mr. Polly asked. 

"You're really meaning it?"

"If it's a practable proposition, O' Man. Assuming it's practable. What's your idea of the figures?"

Johnson went to the chiffonier, got out a letter and tore off the backsheet. "Let's figure it out, " he said with solemn satisfaction. "Let'ssee the lowest you could do it on. "

He squared himself to the task, and Mr. Polly sat beside him like apupil, watching the evolution of the grey, distasteful figures thatwere to dispose of his little hoard. 

"What running expenses have we got to provide for?" said Johnson, wetting his pencil. "Let's have them first. Rent?... "

At the end of an hour of hideous speculations, Johnson decided: "It'sclose. But you'll have a chance. "

"M'm, " said Mr. Polly. "What more does a brave man want?"

"One thing you can do quite easily. I've asked about it. "

"What's that, O' Man?" said Mr. Polly. 

"Take the shop without the house above it. "

"I suppose I might put my head in to mind it, " said Mr. Polly, "andget a job with my body. "

"Not exactly that. But I thought you'd save a lot if you stayed onhere--being all alone as you are. "

"Never thought of that, O' Man, " said Mr. Polly, and reflectedsilently upon the needlessness of Miriam. 

"We were talking of eighty pounds for stock, " said Johnson. "Of courseseventy-five is five pounds less, isn't it? Not much else we can cut. "

"No, " said Mr. Polly. 

"It's very interesting, all this, " said Johnson, folding up the halfsheet of paper and unfolding it. "I wish sometimes I had a business ofmy own instead of a fixed salary. You'll have to keep books ofcourse. "

"One wants to know where one is. "

"I should do it all by double entry, " said Johnson. "A littletroublesome at first, but far the best in the end. "

"Lemme see that paper, " said Mr. Polly, and took it with the feelingof a man who takes a nauseating medicine, and scrutinised his cousin'sneat figures with listless eyes. 

"Well, " said Johnson, rising and stretching. "Bed! Better sleep on it, O' Man. "

"Right O, " said Mr. Polly without moving, but indeed he could as wellhave slept upon a bed of thorns. 

He had a dreadful night. It was like the end of the annual holiday, only infinitely worse. It was like a newly arrived prisoner's backwardglance at the trees and heather through the prison gates. He had to goback to harness, and he was as fitted to go in harness as the ordinarydomestic cat. All night, Fate, with the quiet complacency, and indeedat times the very face and gestures of Johnson, guided him towardsthat undesired establishment at the corner near the station. "OhLord!" he cried, "I'd rather go back to cribs. I _should_ keep mymoney anyhow. " Fate never winced. 

"Run away to sea, " whispered Mr. Polly, but he knew he wasn't manenough. 

"Cut my blooming throat. "

Some braver strain urged him to think of Miriam, and for a littlewhile he lay still.... 

"Well, O' Man?" said Johnson, when Mr. Polly came down to breakfast, and Mrs. Johnson looked up brightly. Mr. Polly had never feltbreakfast so unattractive before. 

"Just a day or so more, O' Man--to turn it over in my mind, " he said. 

"You'll get the place snapped up, " said Johnson. 

There were times in those last few days of coyness with his destinywhen his engagement seemed the most negligible of circumstances, andtimes--and these happened for the most part at nights after Mrs. Johnson had indulged everybody in a Welsh rarebit--when it assumed sosinister and portentous an appearance as to make him think of suicide. And there were times too when he very distinctly desired to bemarried, now that the idea had got into his head, at any cost. Also hetried to recall all the circumstances of his proposal, time aftertime, and never quite succeeded in recalling what had brought thething off. He went over to Stamton with a becoming frequency, andkissed all his cousins, and Miriam especially, a great deal, and foundit very stirring and refreshing. They all appeared to know; and Minniewas tearful, but resigned. Mrs. Larkins met him, and indeed envelopedhim, with unwonted warmth, and there was a big pot of household jamfor tea. And he could not make up his mind to sign his name toanything about the shop, though it crawled nearer and nearer to him, though the project had materialised now to the extent of a draftagreement with the place for his signature indicated in pencil. 

One morning, just after Mr. Johnson had gone to the station, Mr. Pollywheeled his bicycle out into the road, went up to his bedroom, packedhis long white nightdress, a comb, and a toothbrush in a manner thatwas as offhand as he could make it, informed Mrs. Johnson, who wasmanifestly curious, that he was "off for a day or two to clear hishead, " and fled forthright into the road, and mounting turned hiswheel towards the tropics and the equator and the south coast ofEngland, and indeed more particularly to where the little village ofFishbourne slumbers and sleeps. 

When he returned four days later, he astonished Johnson beyond measureby remarking so soon as the shop project was reopened:

"I've took a little contraption at Fishbourne, O' Man, that I fancysuits me better. "

He paused, and then added in a manner, if possible, even more offhand:

"Oh! and I'm going to have a bit of a nuptial over at Stamton with oneof the Larkins cousins. "

"Nuptial!" said Johnson. 

"Wedding bells, O' Man. Benedictine collapse. "

On the whole Johnson showed great self-control. "It's your own affair, O' Man, " he said, when things had been more clearly explained, "and Ihope you won't feel sorry when it's too late. "

But Mrs. Johnson was first of all angrily silent, and thenreproachful. "I don't see what we've done to be made fools of likethis, " she said. "After all the trouble we've 'ad to make youcomfortable and see after you. Out late and sitting up and everything. And then you go off as sly as sly without a word, and get a shopbehind our backs as though you thought we meant to steal your money. I'aven't patience with such deceitfulness, and I didn't think it ofyou, Elfrid. And now the letting season's 'arf gone by, and what Ishall do with that room of yours I've no idea. Frank is frank, andfair play fair play; so _I_ was told any'ow when I was a girl. Just aslong as it suits you to stay 'ere you stay 'ere, and then it's off andno thank you whether we like it or not. Johnson's too easy with you. 'E sits there and doesn't say a word, and night after night 'e's beenaddin' and thinkin' for you, instead of seeing to his own affairs--"

She paused for breath. 

"Unfortunate amoor, " said Mr. Polly, apologetically and indistinctly. "Didn't expect it myself. "

IV

Mr. Polly's marriage followed with a certain inevitableness. 

He tried to assure himself that he was acting upon his own forcefulinitiative, but at the back of his mind was the completest realisationof his powerlessness to resist the gigantic social forces he had setin motion. He had got to marry under the will of society, even as intimes past it has been appointed for other sunny souls under the willof society that they should be led out by serious and unavoidablefellow-creatures and ceremoniously drowned or burnt or hung. He wouldhave preferred infinitely a more observant and less conspicuous rôle, but the choice was no longer open to him. He did his best to play hispart, and he procured some particularly neat check trousers to do itin. The rest of his costume, except for some bright yellow gloves, agrey and blue mixture tie, and that the broad crape hat-band waschanged for a livelier piece of silk, were the things he had worn atthe funeral of his father. So nearly akin are human joy and sorrow. 

The Larkins sisters had done wonders with grey sateen. The idea oforange blossom and white veils had been abandoned reluctantly onaccount of the expense of cabs. A novelette in which the heroine hadstood at the altar in "a modest going-away dress" had materiallyassisted this decision. Miriam was frankly tearful, and so indeed wasAnnie, but with laughter as well to carry it off. Mr. Polly heardAnnie say something vague about never getting a chance because ofMiriam always sticking about at home like a cat at a mouse-hole, thatbecame, as people say, food for thought. Mrs. Larkins was from thefirst flushed, garrulous, and wet and smeared by copious weeping; anincredibly soaked and crumpled and used-up pocket handkerchief neverleft the clutch of her plump red hand. "Goo' girls, all of them, " shekept on saying in a tremulous voice; "such-goo-goo-goo-girls!" Shewetted Mr. Polly dreadfully when she kissed him. Her emotion affectedthe buttons down the back of her bodice, and almost the last filialduty Miriam did before entering on her new life was to close thatgaping orifice for the eleventh time. Her bonnet was small andill-balanced, black adorned with red roses, and first it got over herright eye until Annie told her of it, and then she pushed it over herleft eye and looked ferocious for a space, and after that baptismalkissing of Mr. Polly the delicate millinery took fright and climbedright up to the back part of her head and hung on there by a pin, andflapped piteously at all the larger waves of emotion that filled thegathering. Mr. Polly became more and more aware of that bonnet as timewent on, until he felt for it like a thing alive. Towards the end ithad yawning fits. 

The company did not include Mrs. Johnson, but Johnson came with amanifest surreptitiousness and backed against walls and watched Mr. Polly with doubt and speculation in his large grey eyes and whistlednoiselessly and doubtful on the edge of things. He was, so to speak, to be best man, _sotto voce_. A sprinkling of girls in gay hats fromMiriam's place of business appeared in church, great nudgers all ofthem, but only two came on afterwards to the house. Mrs. Punt broughther son with his ever-widening mind, it was his first wedding, and aLarkins uncle, a Mr. Voules, a licenced victualler, very kindly droveover in a gig from Sommershill with a plump, well-dressed wife to givethe bride away. One or two total strangers drifted into the church andsat down observantly far away. 

This sprinkling of people seemed only to enhance the cool brownemptiness of the church, the rows and rows of empty pews, disengagedprayerbooks and abandoned hassocks. It had the effect of apreposterous misfit. Johnson consulted with a thin-legged, short-skirted verger about the disposition of the party. Theofficiating clergy appeared distantly in the doorway of the vestry, putting on his surplice, and relapsed into a contemplativecheek-scratching that was manifestly habitual. Before the bridearrived Mr. Polly's sense of the church found an outlet in whisperedcriticisms of ecclesiastical architecture with Johnson. "Early Normanarches, eh?" he said, "or Perpendicular. "

"Can't say, " said Johnson. 

"Telessated pavements, all right. "

"It's well laid anyhow. "

"Can't say I admire the altar. Scrappy rather with those flowers. "

He coughed behind his hand and cleared his throat. At the back of hismind he was speculating whether flight at this eleventh hour would becriminal or merely reprehensible bad taste. A murmur from the nudgersannounced the arrival of the bridal party. 

The little procession from a remote door became one of the enduringmemories of Mr. Polly's life. The little verger had bustled to meetit, and arrange it according to tradition and morality. In spite ofMrs. Larkins' "Don't take her from me yet!" he made Miriam go firstwith Mr. Voules, the bridesmaids followed and then himself hopelesslyunable to disentangle himself from the whispering maternal anguish ofMrs. Larkins. Mrs. Voules, a compact, rounded woman with a square, expressionless face, imperturbable dignity, and a dress ofconsiderable fashion, completed the procession. 

Mr. Polly's eye fell first upon the bride; the sight of her filled himwith a curious stir of emotion. Alarm, desire, affection, respect--anda queer element of reluctant dislike all played their part in thatcomplex eddy. The grey dress made her a stranger to him, made herstiff and commonplace, she was not even the rather drooping form thathad caught his facile sense of beauty when he had proposed to her inthe Recreation Ground. There was something too that did not please himin the angle of her hat, it was indeed an ill-conceived hat with largeaimless rosettes of pink and grey. Then his mind passed to Mrs. Larkins and the bonnet that was to gain such a hold upon him; itseemed to be flag-signalling as she advanced, and to the two eager, unrefined sisters he was acquiring. 

A freak of fancy set him wondering where and when in the future abeautiful girl with red hair might march along some splendid aisle. Never mind! He became aware of Mr. Voules. 

He became aware of Mr. Voules as a watchful, blue eye of intenseforcefulness. It was the eye of a man who has got hold of a situation. He was a fat, short, red-faced man clad in a tight-fitting tail coatof black and white check with a coquettish bow tie under the lowest ofa number of crisp little red chins. He held the bride under his armwith an air of invincible championship, and his free arm flourished agrey top hat of an equestrian type. Mr. Polly instantly learnt fromthe eye that Mr. Voules knew all about his longing for flight. Itsazure pupil glowed with disciplined resolution. It said: "I've come togive this girl away, and give her away I will. I'm here now and thingshave to go on all right. So don't think of it any more"--and Mr. Pollydidn't. A faint phantom of a certain "lill' dog" that had hovered justbeneath the threshold of consciousness vanished into blackimpossibility. Until the conclusive moment of the service was attainedthe eye of Mr. Voules watched Mr. Polly relentlessly, and theninstantly he relieved guard, and blew his nose into a voluminous andrichly patterned handkerchief, and sighed and looked round for theapproval and sympathy of Mrs. Voules, and nodded to her brightly likeone who has always foretold a successful issue to things. Mr. Pollyfelt then like a marionette that has just dropped off its wire. But itwas long before that release arrived. 

He became aware of Miriam breathing close to him. 

"Hullo!" he said, and feeling that was clumsy and would meet the eye'sdisapproval: "Grey dress--suits you no end. "

Miriam's eyes shone under her hat-brim. 

"Not reely!" she whispered. 

"You're all right, " he said with the feeling of observation andcriticism stiffening his lips. He cleared his throat. 

The verger's hand pushed at him from behind. Someone was drivingMiriam towards the altar rail and the clergyman. "We're in for it, "said Mr. Polly to her sympathetically. "Where? Here? Right O. " He wasinterested for a moment or so in something indescribably habitual inthe clergyman's pose. What a lot of weddings he must have seen! Sickhe must be of them!

"Don't let your attention wander, " said the eye. 

"Got the ring?" whispered Johnson. 

"Pawned it yesterday, " answered Mr. Polly and then had a dreadfulmoment under that pitiless scrutiny while he felt in the wrongwaistcoat pocket.... 

The officiating clergy sighed deeply, began, and married them wearilyand without any hitch. 

"_D'b'loved, we gath'd 'gether sight o' Gard 'n face this con'gationjoin 'gather Man, Worn' Holy Mat'my which is on'bl state stooted byGard in times man's innocency_.... "

Mr. Polly's thoughts wandered wide and far, and once again somethinglike a cold hand touched his heart, and he saw a sweet face insunshine under the shadow of trees. 

Someone was nudging him. It was Johnson's finger diverted his eyes tothe crucial place in the prayer-book to which they had come. 

"Wiltou lover, cumfer, oner, keeper sickness and health... "

"Say 'I will. '"

Mr. Polly moistened his lips. "I will, " he said hoarsely. 

Miriam, nearly inaudible, answered some similar demand. 

Then the clergyman said: "Who gifs Worn married to this man?"

"Well, _I'm_ doing that, " said Mr. Voules in a refreshingly full voiceand looking round the church. "You see, me and Martha Larkins beingcousins--"

He was silenced by the clergyman's rapid grip directing the exchangeof hands. 

"Pete arf me, " said the clergyman to Mr. Polly. "Take thee Mirum wedwife--"

"Take thee Mirum wed' wife, " said Mr. Polly. 

"Have hold this day ford. "

"Have hold this day ford. "

"Betworse, richpoo'--"

"Bet worsh, richpoo'.... "

Then came Miriam's turn. 

"Lego hands, " said the clergyman; "got the ring? No! On the book. So!Here! Pete arf me, 'withis ring Ivy wed. '"

"Withis ring Ivy wed--"

So it went on, blurred and hurried, like the momentary vision of anutterly beautiful thing seen through the smoke of a passing train.... 

"Now, my boy, " said Mr. Voules at last, gripping Mr. Polly's elbowtightly, "you've got to sign the registry, and there you are! Done!"

Before him stood Miriam, a little stiffly, the hat with a slight rakeacross her forehead, and a kind of questioning hesitation in her face. Mr. Voules urged him past her. 

It was astounding. She was his wife!

And for some reason Miriam and Mrs. Larkins were sobbing, and Anniewas looking grave. Hadn't they after all wanted him to marry her?Because if that was the case--!

He became aware for the first time of the presence of Uncle Pentstemonin the background, but approaching, wearing a tie of a light mineralblue colour, and grinning and sucking enigmatically and judiciouslyround his principal tooth. 

V

It was in the vestry that the force of Mr. Voules' personality beganto show at its true value. He seemed to open out and spread overthings directly the restraints of the ceremony were at an end. 

"Everything, " he said to the clergyman, "excellent. " He also shookhands with Mrs. Larkins, who clung to him for a space, and kissedMiriam on the cheek. "First kiss for me, " he said, "anyhow. "

He led Mr. Polly to the register by the arm, and then got chairs forMrs. Larkins and his wife. He then turned on Miriam. "Now, youngpeople, " he said. "One! or _I_ shall again. "

"That's right!" said Mr. Voules. "Same again, Miss. "

Mr. Polly was overcome with modest confusion, and turning, found arefuge from this publicity in the arms of Mrs. Larkins. Then in astate of profuse moisture he was assaulted and kissed by Annie andMinnie, who were immediately kissed upon some indistinctly statedgrounds by Mr. Voules, who then kissed the entirely impassive Mrs. Voules and smacked his lips and remarked: "Home again safe and sound!"Then with a strange harrowing cry Mrs. Larkins seized upon and bedewedMiriam with kisses, Annie and Minnie kissed each other, and Johnsonwent abruptly to the door of the vestry and stared into the church--nodoubt with ideas of sanctuary in his mind. "Like a bit of a kiss roundsometimes, " said Mr. Voules, and made a kind of hissing noise with histeeth, and suddenly smacked his hands together with great _éclat_several times. Meanwhile the clergyman scratched his cheek with onehand and fiddled the pen with the other and the verger coughedprotestingly. 

"The dog cart's just outside, " said Mr. Voules. "No walking hometo-day for the bride, Mam. "

"Not going to drive us?" cried Annie. 

"The happy pair, Miss. _Your_ turn soon. "

"Get out!" said Annie. "I shan't marry--ever. "

"You won't be able to help it. You'll have to do it--just to dispersethe crowd. " Mr. Voules laid his hand on Mr. Polly's shoulder. "Thebridegroom gives his arm to the bride. Hands across and down themiddle. Prump. Prump, Perump-pump-pump-pump. "

Mr. Polly found himself and the bride leading the way towards thewestern door. 

Mrs. Larkins passed close to Uncle Pentstemon, sobbing too earnestlyto be aware of him. "Such a goo-goo-goo-girl!" she sobbed. 

"Didn't think _I'd_ come, did you?" said Uncle Pentstemon, but sheswept past him, too busy with the expression of her feelings toobserve him. 

"She didn't think I'd come, I lay, " said Uncle Pentstemon, a littlefoiled, but effecting an auditory lodgment upon Johnson. 

"I don't know, " said Johnson uncomfortably. 

"I suppose you were asked. How are you getting on?"

"I was _arst_, " said Uncle Pentstemon, and brooded for a moment. 

"I goes about seeing wonders, " he added, and then in a sort ofenhanced undertone: "One of 'er girls gettin' married. That's what Imean by wonders. Lord's goodness! Wow!"

"Nothing the matter?" asked Johnson. 

"Got it in the back for a moment. Going to be a change of weather Isuppose, " said Uncle Pentstemon. "I brought 'er a nice present, too, what I got in this passel. Vallyble old tea caddy that uset' be mymother's. What I kep' my baccy in for years and years--till the hingeat the back got broke. It ain't been no use to me particular since, sothinks I, drat it! I may as well give it 'er as not.... "

Mr. Polly found himself emerging from the western door. 

Outside, a crowd of half-a-dozen adults and about fifty children hadcollected, and hailed the approach of the newly wedded couple with afaint, indeterminate cheer. All the children were holding something inlittle bags, and his attention was caught by the expression ofvindictive concentration upon the face of a small big-eared boy in theforeground. He didn't for the moment realise what these things mightimport. Then he received a stinging handful of rice in the ear, and agreat light shone. 

"Not yet, you young fool!" he heard Mr. Voules saying behind him, andthen a second handful spoke against his hat. 

"Not yet, " said Mr. Voules with increasing emphasis, and Mr. Pollybecame aware that he and Miriam were the focus of two crescents ofsmall boys, each with the light of massacre in his eyes and a grubbyfist clutching into a paper bag for rice; and that Mr. Voules waswarding off probable discharges with a large red hand. 

The dog cart was in charge of a loafer, and the horse and the whipwere adorned with white favours, and the back seat was confused butnot untenable with hampers. "Up we go, " said Mr. Voules, "old birds infront and young ones behind. " An ominous group of ill-restrainedrice-throwers followed them up as they mounted. 

"Get your handkerchief for your face, " said Mr. Polly to his bride, and took the place next the pavement with considerable heroism, heldon, gripped his hat, shut his eyes and prepared for the worst. "Off!"said Mr. Voules, and a concentrated fire came stinging Mr. Polly'sface. 

The horse shied, and when the bridegroom could look at the world againit was manifest the dog cart had just missed an electric tram by ahairsbreadth, and far away outside the church railings the verger andJohnson were battling with an active crowd of small boys for the lifeof the rest of the Larkins family. Mrs. Punt and her son had escapedacross the road, the son trailing and stumbling at the end of aremorseless arm, but Uncle Pentstemon, encumbered by the tea-caddy, was the centre of a little circle of his own, and appeared to bedratting them all very heartily. Remoter, a policeman approached withan air of tranquil unconsciousness. 

"Steady, you idiot. Stead-y!" cried Mr. Voules, and then over hisshoulder: "I brought that rice! I like old customs! Whoa! Stead-y. "

The dog cart swerved violently, and then, evoking a shout ofgroundless alarm from a cyclist, took a corner, and the rest of thewedding party was hidden from Mr. Polly's eyes. 

VI

"We'll get the stuff into the house before the old gal comes along, "said Mr. Voules, "if you'll hold the hoss. "

"How about the key?" asked Mr. Polly. 

"I got the key, coming. "

And while Mr. Polly held the sweating horse and dodged the foam thatdripped from its bit, the house absorbed Miriam and Mr. Voulesaltogether. Mr. Voules carried in the various hampers he had broughtwith him, and finally closed the door behind him. 

For some time Mr. Polly remained alone with his charge in the littleblind alley outside the Larkins' house, while the neighboursscrutinised him from behind their blinds. He reflected that he was amarried man, that he must look very like a fool, that the head of ahorse is a silly shape and its eye a bulger; he wondered what thehorse thought of him, and whether it really liked being held andpatted on the neck or whether it only submitted out of contempt. Didit know he was married? Then he wondered if the clergyman had thoughthim much of an ass, and then whether the individual lurking behind thelace curtains of the front room next door was a man or a woman. A dooropened over the way, and an elderly gentleman in a kind of embroideredfez appeared smoking a pipe with a quiet satisfied expression. Heregarded Mr. Polly for some time with mild but sustained curiosity. Finally he called: "Hi!"

"Hullo!" said Mr. Polly. 

"You needn't 'old that '_orse_, " said the old gentleman. 

"Spirited beast, " said Mr. Polly. "And, "--with some faint analogy toginger beer in his mind--"he's up today. "

"'E won't turn 'isself round, " said the old gentleman, "anyow. Andthere ain't no way through for 'im to go. "

"_Verbum_ sap, " said Mr. Polly, and abandoned the horse and turned, tothe door. It opened to him just as Mrs. Larkins on the arm of Johnson, followed by Annie, Minnie, two friends, Mrs. Punt and her son and at aslight distance Uncle Pentstemon, appeared round the corner. 

"They're coming, " he said to Miriam, and put an arm about her and gaveher a kiss. 

She was kissing him back when they were startled violently by theshying of two empty hampers into the passage. Then Mr. Voules appearedholding a third. 

"Here! you'll '_ave_ plenty of time for that presently, " he said, "getthese hampers away before the old girl comes. I got a cold collationhere to make her sit up. My eye!"

Miriam took the hampers, and Mr. Polly under compulsion from Mr. Voules went into the little front room. A profuse pie and a large hamhad been added to the modest provision of Mrs. Larkins, and a numberof select-looking bottles shouldered the bottle of sherry and thebottle of port she had got to grace the feast. They certainly wentbetter with the iced wedding cake in the middle. Mrs. Voules, stillimpassive, stood by the window regarding these things with a faintapproval. 

"Makes it look a bit thicker, eh?" said Mr. Voules, and blew out bothhis cheeks and smacked his hands together violently several times. "Surprise the old girl no end. "

He stood back and smiled and bowed with arms extended as the otherscame clustering at the door. 

"Why, _Un_-_clé_ Voules!" cried Annie, with a rising note. 

It was his reward. 

And then came a great wedging and squeezing and crowding into thelittle room. Nearly everyone was hungry, and eyes brightened at thesight of the pie and the ham and the convivial array of bottles. "Sitdown everyone, " cried Mr. Voules, "leaning against anything counts assitting, and makes it easier to shake down the grub!"

The two friends from Miriam's place of business came into the roomamong the first, and then wedged themselves so hopelessly againstJohnson in an attempt to get out again and take off their thingsupstairs that they abandoned the attempt. Amid the struggle Mr. Pollysaw Uncle Pentstemon relieve himself of his parcel by giving it to thebride. "Here!" he said and handed it to her. "Weddin' present, " heexplained, and added with a confidential chuckle, "_I_ never thoughtI'd '_ave_ to give you one--ever. "

"Who says steak and kidney pie?" bawled Mr. Voules. "Who says steakand kidney pie? You '_ave_ a drop of old Tommy, Martha. That's whatyou want to steady you.... Sit down everyone and don't all speak atonce. Who says steak and kidney pie?... "

"Vocificeratious, " whispered Mr. Polly. "Convivial vocificerations. "

"Bit of 'am with it, " shouted Mr. Voules, poising a slice of ham onhis knife. "Anyone '_ave_ a bit of 'am with it? Won't that little manof yours, Mrs. Punt--won't 'e '_ave_ a bit of 'am?... "

"And now ladies and gentlemen, " said Mr. Voules, still standing anddominating the crammed roomful, "now you got your plates filled andsomething I can warrant you good in your glasses, wot about drinkingthe 'ealth of the bride?"

"Eat a bit fust, " said Uncle Pentstemon, speaking with his mouth full, amidst murmurs of applause. "Eat a bit fust. "

So they did, and the plates clattered and the glasses chinked. 

Mr. Polly stood shoulder to shoulder with Johnson for a moment. 

"In for it, " said Mr. Polly cheeringly. "Cheer up, O' Man, and peck abit. No reason why _you_ shouldn't eat, you know. "

The Punt boy stood on Mr. Polly's boots for a minute, strugglingviolently against the compunction of Mrs. Punt's grip. 

"Pie, " said the Punt boy, "Pie!"

"You sit 'ere and '_ave_ 'am, my lord!" said Mrs. Punt, prevailing. "Pie you can't '_ave_ and you won't. "

"Lor bless my heart, Mrs. Punt!" protested Mr. Voules, "let the boy'_ave_ a bit if he wants it--wedding and all!"

"You 'aven't 'ad 'im sick on your 'ands, Uncle Voules, " said Mrs. Punt. "Else you wouldn't want to humour his fancies as you do.... "

"I can't help feeling it's a mistake, O' Man, " said Johnson, in aconfidential undertone. "I can't help feeling you've been Rash. Let'shope for the best. "

"Always glad of good wishes, O' Man, " said Mr. Polly. "You'd betterhave a drink of something. Anyhow, sit down to it. "

Johnson subsided gloomily, and Mr. Polly secured some ham and carriedit off and sat himself down on the sewing machine on the floor in thecorner to devour it. He was hungry, and a little cut off from the restof the company by Mrs. Voules' hat and back, and he occupied himselffor a time with ham and his own thoughts. He became aware of a seriesof jangling concussions on the table. He craned his neck anddiscovered that Mr. Voules was standing up and leaning forward overthe table in the manner distinctive of after-dinner speeches, tappingupon the table with a black bottle. "Ladies and gentlemen, " said Mr. Voules, raising his glass solemnly in the empty desert of sound he hadmade, and paused for a second or so. "Ladies and gentlemen, --TheBride. " He searched his mind for some suitable wreath of speech, andbrightened at last with discovery. "Here's Luck to her!" he said atlast. 

"Here's Luck!" said Johnson hopelessly but resolutely, and raised hisglass. Everybody murmured: "Here's luck. "

"Luck!" said Mr. Polly, unseen in his corner, lifting a forkful ofham. 

"That's all right, " said Mr. Voules with a sigh of relief at havingbrought off a difficult operation. "And now, who's for a bit morepie?"

For a time conversation was fragmentary again. But presently Mr. Voules rose from his chair again; he had subsided with a contentedsmile after his first oratorical effort, and produced a silence byrenewed hammering. "Ladies and gents, " he said, "fill up for thesecond toast:--the happy Bridegroom!" He stood for half a minutesearching his mind for the apt phrase that came at last in a rush. "Here's (hic) luck to _him_, " said Mr. Voules. 

"Luck to him!" said everyone, and Mr. Polly, standing up behind Mrs. Voules, bowed amiably, amidst enthusiasm. 

"He may say what he likes, " said Mrs. Larkins, "he's _got_ luck. Thatgirl's a treasure of treasures, and always has been ever since shetried to nurse her own little sister, being but three at the time, andfell the full flight of stairs from top to bottom, no hurt that anyoutward eye 'as even seen, but always ready and helpful, alwaystidying and busy. A treasure, I must say, and a treasure I will say, giving no more than her due.... "

She was silenced altogether by a rapping sound that would not bedenied. Mr. Voules had been struck by a fresh idea and was standing upand hammering with the bottle again. 

"The third Toast, ladies and gentlemen, " he said; "fill up, please. The Mother of the bride. I--er.... Uoo.... Ere!... Ladies and gem, 'Ere's Luck to 'er!... "

VII

The dingy little room was stuffy and crowded to its utmost limit, andMr. Polly's skies were dark with the sense of irreparable acts. Everybody seemed noisy and greedy and doing foolish things. Miriam, still in that unbecoming hat--for presently they had to start off tothe station together--sat just beyond Mrs. Punt and her son, doing hershare in the hospitalities, and ever and again glancing at him with adeliberately encouraging smile. Once she leant over the back of thechair to him and whispered cheeringly: "Soon be together now. " Next toher sat Johnson, profoundly silent, and then Annie, talking vigorouslyto a friend. Uncle Pentstemon was eating voraciously opposite, butwith a kindling eye for Annie. Mrs. Larkins sat next to Mr. Voules. She was unable to eat a mouthful, she declared, it would choke her, but ever and again Mr. Voules wooed her to swallow a little drop ofliquid refreshment. 

There seemed a lot of rice upon everybody, in their hats and hair andthe folds of their garments. 

Presently Mr. Voules was hammering the table for the fourth time inthe interests of the Best Man.... 

All feasts come to an end at last, and the breakup of things wasprecipitated by alarming symptoms on the part of Master Punt. He wastaken out hastily after a whispered consultation, and since he had gotinto the corner between the fireplace and the cupboard, that meanteveryone moving to make way for him. Johnson took the opportunity tosay, "Well--so long, " to anyone who might be listening, and disappear. Mr. Polly found himself smoking a cigarette and walking up and downoutside in the company of Uncle Pentstemon, while Mr. Voules replacedbottles in hampers and prepared for departure, and the womenkind ofthe party crowded upstairs with the bride. Mr. Polly felt taciturn, but the events of the day had stirred the mind of Uncle Pentstemon tospeech. And so he spoke, discursively and disconnectedly, a littleheedless of his listener as wise old men will. 

"They do say, " said Uncle Pentstemon, "one funeral makes many. Thistime it's a wedding. But it's all very much of a muchness, " said UnclePentstemon.... 

"'Am _do_ get in my teeth nowadays, " said Uncle Pentstemon, "I can'tunderstand it. 'Tisn't like there was nubbicks or strings or such in'am. It's a plain food. 

"That's better, " he said at last. 

"You _got_ to get married, " said Uncle Pentstemon. "Some has. Somehain't. I done it long before I was your age. It hain't for me toblame you. You can't 'elp being the marrying sort any more than me. It's nat'ral-like poaching or drinking or wind on the stummik. Youcan't 'elp it and there you are! As for the good of it, there ain't noparticular good in it as I can see. It's a toss up. The hotter come, the sooner cold, but they all gets tired of it sooner or later.... Ihain't no grounds to complain. Two I've 'ad and berried, and might'_ave_ '_ad_ a third, and never no worrit with kids--never.... 

"You done well not to '_ave_ the big gal. I will say that for ye. She's a gad-about grinny, she is, if ever was. A gad-about grinny. Mucked up my mushroom bed to rights, she did, and I 'aven't forgot it. Got the feet of a centipede, she 'as--ll over everything and neitherwith your leave nor by your leave. Like a stray 'en in a pea patch. Cluck! cluck! Trying to laugh it off. _I_ laughed 'er off, I did. Dratted lumpin baggage!... "

For a while he mused malevolently upon Annie, and routed out areluctant crumb from some coy sitting-out place in his tooth. 

"Wimmin's a toss up, " said Uncle Pentstemon. "Prize packets they are, and you can't tell what's in 'em till you took 'em 'ome and undone'em. Never was a bachelor married yet that didn't buy a pig in a poke. Never. Marriage seems to change the very natures in 'em through andthrough. You can't tell what they won't turn into--nohow. 

"I seen the nicest girls go wrong, " said Uncle Pentstemon, and addedwith unusual thoughtfulness, "Not that I mean _you_ got one of thatsort. "

He sent another crumb on to its long home with a sucking, encouragingnoise. 

"The _wust_ sort's the grizzler, " Uncle Pentstemon resumed. "If everI'd 'ad a grizzler I'd up and 'it 'er on the 'ed with sumpthin' prettyquick. I don't think I could abide a grizzler, " said Uncle Pentstemon. "I'd liefer '_ave_ a lump-about like that other gal. I would indeed. Ilay I'd make 'er stop laughing after a bit for all 'er airs. And mindwhere her clumsy great feet went.... 

"A man's got to tackle 'em, whatever they be, " said Uncle Pentstemon, summing up the shrewd observation of an old-world life time. "Good orbad, " said Uncle Pentstemon raising his voice fearlessly, "a man's gotto tackle 'em. "

VIII

At last it was time for the two young people to catch the train forWaterloo _en route_ for Fishbourne. They had to hurry, and as aconcluding glory of matrimony they travelled second-class, and wereseen off by all the rest of the party except the Punts, Master Puntbeing now beyond any question unwell. 

"Off!" The train moved out of the station. 

Mr. Polly remained waving his hat and Mrs. Polly her handkerchiefuntil they were hidden under the bridge. The dominating figure to thelast was Mr. Voules. He had followed them along the platform wavingthe equestrian grey hat and kissing his hand to the bride. 

They subsided into their seats. 

"Got a compartment to ourselves anyhow, " said Mrs. Polly after apause. 

Silence for a moment. 

"The rice 'e must '_ave_ bought. Pounds and pounds!"

Mr. Polly felt round his collar at the thought. 

"Ain't you going to kiss me, Elfrid, now we're alone together?"

He roused himself to sit forward hands on knees, cocked his hat overone eye, and assumed an expression of avidity becoming to theoccasion. 

"Never!" he said. "Ever!" and feigned to be selecting a place to kisswith great discrimination. 

"Come here, " he said, and drew her to him. 

"Be careful of my 'at, " said Mrs. Polly, yielding awkwardly. 

Chapter the Seventh

The Little Shop at Fishbourne

I

For fifteen years Mr. Polly was a respectable shopkeeper inFishbourne. 

Years they were in which every day was tedious, and when they weregone it was as if they had gone in a flash. But now Mr. Polly had goodlooks no more, he was as I have described him in the beginning of thisstory, thirty-seven and fattish in a not very healthy way, dull andyellowish about the complexion, and with discontented wrinklings roundhis eyes. He sat on the stile above Fishbourne and cried to theHeavens above him: "Oh! Roo-o-o-tten Be-e-astly Silly Hole!" And hewore a rather shabby black morning coat and vest, and his tie wasrichly splendid, being from stock, and his golf cap aslant over oneeye. 

Fifteen years ago, and it might have seemed to you that the queerlittle flower of Mr. Polly's imagination must be altogether witheredand dead, and with no living seed left in any part of him. But indeedit still lived as an insatiable hunger for bright and delightfulexperiences, for the gracious aspects of things, for beauty. He stillread books when he had a chance, books that told of glorious placesabroad and glorious times, that wrung a rich humour from life andcontained the delight of words freshly and expressively grouped. Butalas! there are not many such books, and for the newspapers and thecheap fiction that abounded more and more in the world Mr. Polly hadlittle taste. There was no epithet in them. And there was no one totalk to, as he loved to talk. And he had to mind his shop. 

It was a reluctant little shop from the beginning. 

He had taken it to escape the doom of Johnson's choice and becauseFishbourne had a hold upon his imagination. He had disregarded theill-built cramped rooms behind it in which he would have to lurk andlive, the relentless limitations of its dimensions, the inconvenienceof an underground kitchen that must necessarily be the living-room inwinter, the narrow yard behind giving upon the yard of the RoyalFishbourne Hotel, the tiresome sitting and waiting for custom, therestricted prospects of trade. He had visualised himself and Miriamfirst as at breakfast on a clear bright winter morning amidst atremendous smell of bacon, and then as having muffins for tea. He hadalso thought of sitting on the beach on Sunday afternoons and of goingfor a walk in the country behind the town and picking _marguerites_and poppies. But, in fact, Miriam and he were extremely cross atbreakfast, and it didn't run to muffins at tea. And she didn't thinkit looked well, she said, to go trapesing about the country onSundays. 

It was unfortunate that Miriam never took to the house from the first. She did not like it when she saw it, and liked it less as she exploredit. "There's too many stairs, " she said, "and the coal being indoorswill make a lot of work. "

"Didn't think of that, " said Mr. Polly, following her round. 

"It'll be a hard house to keep clean, " said Miriam. 

"White paint's all very well in its way, " said Miriam, "but it showsthe dirt something fearful. Better '_ave_ '_ad_ it nicely grained. "

"There's a kind of place here, " said Mr. Polly, "where we might havesome flowers in pots. "

"Not me, " said Miriam. "I've 'ad trouble enough with Minnie and 'ermusk.... "

They stayed for a week in a cheap boarding house before they moved in. They had bought some furniture in Stamton, mostly second-hand, butwith new cheap cutlery and china and linen, and they had supplementedthis from the Fishbourne shops. Miriam, relieved from the hilariousassociations of home, developed a meagre and serious quality of herown, and went about with knitted brows pursuing some ideal of "'avingeverything right. " Mr. Polly gave himself to the arrangement of theshop with a certain zest, and whistled a good deal until Miriamappeared and said that it went through her head. So soon as he hadtaken the shop he had filled the window with aggressive postersannouncing in no measured terms that he was going to open, and now hewas getting his stuff put out he was resolved to show Fishbourne whatwindow dressing could do. He meant to give them boater straws, imitation Panamas, bathing dresses with novelties in stripes, lightflannel shirts, summer ties, and ready-made flannel trousers for men, youths and boys. Incidentally he watched the small fishmonger over theway, and had a glimpse of the china dealer next door, and wondered ifa friendly nod would be out of place. And on the first Sunday in thisnew life he and Miriam arrayed themselves with great care, he in hiswedding-funeral hat and coat and she in her going-away dress, and wentprocessionally to church, a more respectable looking couple you couldhardly imagine, and looked about them. 

Things began to settle down next week into their places. A fewcustomers came, chiefly for bathing suits and hat guards, and onSaturday night the cheapest straw hats and ties, and Mr. Polly foundhimself more and more drawn towards the shop door and the social charmof the street. He found the china dealer unpacking a crate at the edgeof the pavement, and remarked that it was a fine day. The china dealergave a reluctant assent, and plunged into the crate in a manner thatpresented no encouragement to a loquacious neighbour. 

"Zealacious commerciality, " whispered Mr. Polly to that unfriendlyback view.... 

II

Miriam combined earnestness of spirit with great practical incapacity. The house was never clean nor tidy, but always being frightfullydisarranged for cleaning or tidying up, and she cooked because foodhad to be cooked and with a sound moralist's entire disregard of thequality of the consequences. The food came from her hands done ratherthan improved, and looking as uncomfortable as savages clothed underduress by a missionary with a stock of out-sizes. Such food is too aptto behave resentfully, rebel and work Obi. She ceased to listen to herhusband's talk from the day she married him, and ceased to unwrinklethe kink in her brow at his presence, giving herself up to mentalstates that had a quality of secret preoccupation. And she developedan idea for which perhaps there was legitimate excuse, that he waslazy. He seemed to stand about in the shop a great deal, to read--anindolent habit--and presently to seek company for talking. He began toattend the bar parlour of the God's Providence Inn with somefrequency, and would have done so regularly in the evening if cards, which bored him to death, had not arrested conversation. But theperpetual foolish variation of the permutations and combinations oftwo and fifty cards taken five at a time, and the meagre surprises andexcitements that ensue had no charms for Mr. Polly's mind, which wasat once too vivid in its impressions and too easily fatigued. 

It was soon manifest the shop paid only in the least exacting sense, and Miriam did not conceal her opinion that he ought to bestir himselfand "do things, " though what he was to do was hard to say. You see, when you have once sunken your capital in a shop you do not veryeasily get it out again. If customers will not come to you cheerfullyand freely the law sets limits upon the compulsion you may exercise. You cannot pursue people about the streets of a watering place, compelling them either by threats or importunity to buy flanneltrousers. Additional sources of income for a tradesman are not alwayseasy to find. Wintershed at the bicycle and gramaphone shop to theright, played the organ in the church, and Clamp of the toy shop waspew opener and so forth, Gambell, the greengrocer, waited at table andhis wife cooked, and Carter, the watchmaker, left things to his wifewhile he went about the world winding clocks, but Mr. Polly had noneof these arts, and wouldn't, in spite of Miriam's quietly persistentprotests, get any other. And on summer evenings he would ride hisbicycle about the country, and if he discovered a sale where therewere books he would as often as not waste half the next day in goingagain to acquire a job lot of them haphazard, and bring them home tiedabout with a string, and hide them from Miriam under the counter inthe shop. That is a heartbreaking thing for any wife with a seriousinvestigatory turn of mind to discover. She was always thinking ofburning these finds, but her natural turn for economy prevailed withher. 

The books he read during those fifteen years! He read everything hegot except theology, and as he read his little unsuccessfulcircumstances vanished and the wonder of life returned to him, theroutine of reluctant getting up, opening shop, pretending to dust itwith zest, breakfasting with a shop egg underdone or overdone or aherring raw or charred, and coffee made Miriam's way and full oflittle particles, the return to the shop, the morning paper, thestanding, standing at the door saying "How do!" to passers-by, orgetting a bit of gossip or watching unusual visitors, all these thingsvanished as the auditorium of a theatre vanishes when the stage islit. He acquired hundreds of books at last, old dusty books, bookswith torn covers and broken covers, fat books whose backs were nakedstring and glue, an inimical litter to Miriam. 

There was, for example, the voyages of La Perouse, with many careful, explicit woodcuts and the frankest revelations of the ways of theeighteenth century sailorman, homely, adventurous, drunken, incontinent and delightful, until he floated, smooth and slow, withall sails set and mirrored in the glassy water, until his head wasfull of the thought of shining kindly brown-skinned women, who smiledat him and wreathed his head with unfamiliar flowers. He had, too, apiece of a book about the lost palaces of Yucatan, those vast terracesburied in primordial forest, of whose makers there is now no humanmemory. With La Perouse he linked "The Island Nights Entertainments, "and it never palled upon him that in the dusky stabbing of the "Islandof Voices" something poured over the stabber's hands "like warm tea. "Queer incommunicable joy it is, the joy of the vivid phrase that turnsthe statement of the horridest fact to beauty!

And another book which had no beginning for him was the second volumeof the Travels of the _Abbés_ Hue and Gabet. He followed those twosweet souls from their lessons in Thibetan under Sandura the Bearded(who called them donkeys to their infinite benefit and stole theirstore of butter) through a hundred misadventures to the very heart ofLhassa, and it was a thirst in him that was never quenched to find theother volume and whence they came, and who in fact they were. He readFenimore Cooper and "Tom Cringle's Log" side by side with JosephConrad, and dreamt of the many-hued humanity of the East and WestIndies until his heart ached to see those sun-soaked lands before hedied. Conrad's prose had a pleasure for him that he was never able todefine, a peculiar deep coloured effect. He found too one day among apile of soiled sixpenny books at Port Burdock, to which place hesometimes rode on his ageing bicycle, Bart Kennedy's "A Sailor Tramp, "all written in livid jerks, and had forever after a kindlier and moreunderstanding eye for every burly rough who slouched throughFishbourne High Street. Sterne he read with a wavering appreciationand some perplexity, but except for the Pickwick Papers, for somereason that I do not understand he never took at all kindly toDickens. Yet he liked Lever and Thackeray's "Catherine, " and all Dumasuntil he got to the Vicomte de Bragelonne. I am puzzled by hisinsensibility to Dickens, and I record it as a good historian should, with an admission of my perplexity. It is much more understandablethat he had no love for Scott. And I suppose it was because of hisignorance of the proper pronunciation of words that he infinitelypreferred any prose to any metrical writing. 

A book he browsed over with a recurrent pleasure was Waterton'sWanderings in South America. He would even amuse himself by inventingdescriptions of other birds in the Watertonian manner, new birds thathe invented, birds with peculiarities that made him chuckle when theyoccurred to him. He tried to make Rusper, the ironmonger, share thisjoy with him. He read Bates, too, about the Amazon, but when hediscovered that you could not see one bank from the other, he lost, through some mysterious action of the soul that again I cannotunderstand, at least a tithe of the pleasure he had taken in thatriver. But he read all sorts of things; a book of old Keltic storiescollected by Joyce charmed him, and Mitford's Tales of Old Japan, anda number of paper-covered volumes, _Tales from Blackwood_, he hadacquired at Easewood, remained a stand-by. He developed a quiteconsiderable acquaintance with the plays of William Shakespeare, andin his dreams he wore cinque cento or Elizabethan clothes, and walkedabout a stormy, ruffling, taverning, teeming world. Great land ofsublimated things, thou World of Books, happy asylum, refreshment andrefuge from the world of everyday!... 

The essential thing of those fifteen long years of shopkeeping is Mr. Polly, well athwart the counter of his rather ill-lit shop, lost in abook, or rousing himself with a sigh to attend to business. 

Meanwhile he got little exercise, indigestion grew with him until itruled all his moods, he fattened and deteriorated physically, moods ofdistress invaded and darkened his skies, little things irritated himmore and more, and casual laughter ceased in him. His hair began tocome off until he had a large bald space at the back of his head. Suddenly one day it came to him--forgetful of those books and all hehad lived and seen through them--that he had been in his shop forexactly fifteen years, that he would soon be forty, and that his lifeduring that time had not been worth living, that it had been inapathetic and feebly hostile and critical company, ugly in detail andmean in scope--and that it had brought him at last to an outlookutterly hopeless and grey. 

III

I have already had occasion to mention, indeed I have quoted, acertain high-browed gentleman living at Highbury, wearing a _golden__pince_-_nez_ and writing for the most part in that beautiful room, the library of the Reform Club. There he wrestles with what he calls"social problems" in a bloodless but at times, I think one must admit, an extremely illuminating manner. He has a fixed idea that somethingcalled a "collective intelligence" is wanted in the world, which meansin practice that you and I and everyone have to think about thingsfrightfully hard and pool the results, and oblige ourselves to beshamelessly and persistently clear and truthful and support andrespect (I suppose) a perfect horde of professors and writers andartists and ill-groomed difficult people, instead of using our brainsin a moderate, sensible manner to play golf and bridge (pretending asense of humour prevents our doing anything else with them) andgenerally taking life in a nice, easy, gentlemanly way, confound him!Well, this dome-headed monster of intellect alleges that Mr. Polly wasunhappy entirely through that. 

"A rapidly complicating society, " he writes, "which as a wholedeclines to contemplate its future or face the intricate problems ofits organisation, is in exactly the position of a man who takes nothought of dietary or regimen, who abstains from baths and exerciseand gives his appetites free play. It accumulates useless and aimlesslives as a man accumulates fat and morbid products in his blood, itdeclines in its collective efficiency and vigour and secretesdiscomfort and misery. Every phase of its evolution is accompanied bya maximum of avoidable distress and inconvenience and human waste.... 

"Nothing can better demonstrate the collective dulness of ourcommunity, the crying need for a strenuous intellectual renewal thanthe consideration of that vast mass of useless, uncomfortable, under-educated, under-trained and altogether pitiable people wecontemplate when we use that inaccurate and misleading term, the LowerMiddle Class. A great proportion of the lower middle class shouldproperly be assigned to the unemployed and the unemployable. They areonly not that, because the possession of some small hoard of money, savings during a period of wage earning, an insurance policy orsuchlike capital, prevents a direct appeal to the rates. But they aredoing little or nothing for the community in return for what theyconsume; they have no understanding of any relation of service to thecommunity, they have never been trained nor their imaginations touchedto any social purpose. A great proportion of small shopkeepers, forexample, are people who have, through the inefficiency that comes frominadequate training and sheer aimlessness, or improvements inmachinery or the drift of trade, been thrown out of employment, andwho set up in needless shops as a method of eking out the savings uponwhich they count. They contrive to make sixty or seventy per cent, oftheir expenditure, the rest is drawn from the shrinking capital. Essentially their lives are failures, not the sharp and tragic failureof the labourer who gets out of work and starves, but a slow, chronicprocess of consecutive small losses which may end if the individual isexceptionally fortunate in an impoverished death bed before actualbankruptcy or destitution supervenes. Their chances of ascendant meansare less in their shops than in any lottery that was ever planned. Thesecular development of transit and communications has made theorganisation of distributing businesses upon large and economicallines, inevitable; except in the chaotic confusions of newly openedcountries, the day when a man might earn an independent living byunskilled or practically unskilled retailing has gone for ever. Yetevery year sees the melancholy procession towards petty bankruptcy andimprisonment for debt go on, and there is no statesmanship in us toavert it. Every issue of every trade journal has its four or fivecolumns of abridged bankruptcy proceedings, nearly every item in whichmeans the final collapse of another struggling family upon theresources of the community, and continually a fresh supply ofsuperfluous artisans and shop assistants, coming out of employmentwith savings or 'help' from relations, of widows with a husband'sinsurance money, of the ill-trained sons of parsimonious fathers, replaces the fallen in the ill-equipped, jerry-built shops thateverywhere abound.... "

I quote these fragments from a gifted, if unpleasant, contemporary forwhat they are worth. I feel this has come in here as the broad aspectof this History. I come back to Mr. Polly sitting upon his gate andswearing in the east wind, and I so returning have a sense of floatingacross unbridged abysses between the General and the Particular. There, on the one hand, is the man of understanding, seeing clearly--Isuppose he sees clearly--the big process that dooms millions of livesto thwarting and discomfort and unhappy circumstances, and giving usno help, no hint, by which we may get that better "collective will andintelligence" which would dam the stream of human failure, and, on theother hand, Mr. Polly sitting on his gate, untrained, unwarned, confused, distressed, angry, seeing nothing except that he is, as itwere, nettled in greyness and discomfort--with life dancing all abouthim; Mr. Polly with a capacity for joy and beauty at least as keen andsubtle as yours or mine. 

IV

I have hinted that our Mother England had equipped Mr. Polly for themanagement of his internal concerns no whit better than she had forthe direction of his external affairs. With a careless generosity sheaffords her children a variety of foods unparalleled in the world'shistory, and including many condiments and preserved preparationsnovel to the human economy. And Miriam did the cooking. Mr. Polly'ssystem, like a confused and ill-governed democracy, had been broughtto a state of perpetual clamour and disorder, demanding now evil andunsuitable internal satisfactions, such as pickles and vinegar and thecrackling on pork, and now vindictive external expression, war andbloodshed throughout the world. So that Mr. Polly had been led intohatred and a series of disagreeable quarrels with his landlord, hiswholesalers, and most of his neighbours. 

Rumbold, the china dealer next door, seemed hostile from the first forno apparent reason, and always unpacked his crates with a full back tohis new neighbour, and from the first Mr. Polly resented and hatedthat uncivil breadth of expressionless humanity, wanted to prod it, kick it, satirise it. But you cannot satirise a hack, if you have nofriend to nudge while you do it. 

At last Mr. Polly could stand it no longer. He approached and proddedRumbold. 

"Ello!" said Rumbold, suddenly erect and turned about. 

"Can't we have some other point of view?" said Mr. Polly. "I'm tiredof the end elevation. "

"Eh?" said Mr. Rumbold, frankly puzzled. 

"Of all the vertebracious animals man alone raises his face to thesky, O' Man. Well, --why invert it?"

Rumbold shook his head with a helpless expression. 

"Don't like so much Arreary Pensy. "

Rumbold distressed in utter obscurity. 

"In fact, I'm sick of your turning your back on me, see?"

A great light shone on Rumbold. "That's what you're talking about!" hesaid. 

"That's it, " said Polly. 

Rumbold scratched his ear with the three strawy jampots he held in hishand. "Way the wind blows, I expect, " he said. "But what's the fuss?"

"No fuss!" said Mr. Polly. "Passing Remark. I don't like it, O' Man, that's all. "

"Can't help it, if the wind blows my stror, " said Mr. Rumbold, stillfar from clear about it.... 

"It isn't ordinary civility, " said Mr. Polly. 

"Got to unpack 'ow it suits me. Can't unpack with the stror blowinginto one's eyes. "

"Needn't unpack like a pig rooting for truffles, need you?"

"Truffles?"

"Needn't unpack like a pig. "

Mr. Rumbold apprehended something. 

"Pig!" he said, impressed. "You calling me a pig?"

"It's the side I seem to get of you. "

"'Ere, " said Mr. Rumbold, suddenly fierce and shouting and marking hispoint with gesticulated jampots, "you go indoors. I don't want no rowwith you, and I don't want you to row with me. I don't know whatyou're after, but I'm a peaceable man--teetotaller, too, and a goodthing if _you_ was. See? You go indoors!"

"You mean to say--I'm asking you civilly to stop unpacking--with yourback to me. "

"Pig ain't civil, and you ain't sober. You go indoors and _lemme_ _go_on unpacking. You--you're excited. "

"D'you mean--!" Mr. Polly was foiled. 

He perceived an immense solidity about Rumbold. 

"Get back to your shop and _lemme_ get on with my business, " said Mr. Rumbold. "Stop calling me pigs. See? Sweep your pavemint. "

"I came here to make a civil request. "

"You came 'ere to make a row. I don't want no truck with you. See? Idon't like the looks of you. See? And I can't stand 'ere all dayarguing. See?"

Pause of mutual inspection. 

It occurred to Mr. Polly that probably he was to some extent in thewrong. 

Mr. Rumbold, blowing heavily, walked past him, deposited the jampotsin his shop with an immense affectation that there was no Mr. Polly inthe world, returned, turned a scornful back on Mr. Polly and dived tothe interior of the crate. Mr. Polly stood baffled. Should he kickthis solid mass before him? Should he administer a resounding kick?

No!

He plunged his hands deeply into his trowser pockets, began to whistleand returned to his own doorstep with an air of profound unconcern. There for a time, to the tune of "Men of Harlech, " he contemplated thereceding possibility of kicking Mr. Rumbold hard. It would besplendid--and for the moment satisfying. But he decided not to do it. For indefinable reasons he could not do it. He went indoors andstraightened up his dress ties very slowly and thoughtfully. Presentlyhe went to the window and regarded Mr. Rumbold obliquely. Mr. Rumboldwas still unpacking.... 

Mr. Polly had no human intercourse thereafter with Rumbold for fifteenyears. He kept up a Hate. 

There was a time when it seemed as if Rumbold might go, but he had ameeting of his creditors and then went on unpacking as obtusely asever. 

V

Hinks, the saddler, two shops further down the street, was a differentcase. Hinks was the aggressor--practically. 

Hinks was a sporting man in his way, with that taste for checks incostume and tight trousers which is, under Providence, so mysteriouslyand invariably associated with equestrian proclivities. At first Mr. Polly took to him as a character, became frequent in the God'sProvidence Inn under his guidance, stood and was stood drinks andconcealed a great ignorance of horses until Hinks became urgent forhim to play billiards or bet. 

Then Mr. Polly took to evading him, and Hinks ceased to conceal hisopinion that Mr. Polly was in reality a softish sort of flat. 

He did not, however, discontinue conversation with Mr. Polly; he wouldcome along to him whenever he appeared at his door, and converse aboutsport and women and fisticuffs and the pride of life with an air ofextreme initiation, until Mr. Polly felt himself the faintestunderdeveloped intimation of a man that had ever hovered on the vergeof non-existence. 

So he invented phrases for Hinks' clothes and took Rusper, theironmonger, into his confidence upon the weaknesses of Hinks. Hecalled him the "Chequered Careerist, " and spoke of his patterned legsas "shivery shakys. " Good things of this sort are apt to get round topeople. 

He was standing at his door one day, feeling bored, when Hinksappeared down the street, stood still and regarded him with a strangemalignant expression for a space. 

Mr. Polly waved a hand in a rather belated salutation. 

Mr. Hinks spat on the pavement and appeared to reflect. Then he cametowards Mr. Polly portentously and paused, and spoke between his teethin an earnest confidential tone. 

"You been flapping your mouth about me, I'm told, " he said. 

Mr. Polly felt suddenly spiritless. "Not that I know of, " he answered. 

"Not that you know of, be blowed! You been flapping your mouth. "

"Don't see it, " said Mr. Polly. 

"Don't see it, be blowed! You go flapping your silly mouth about meand I'll give you a poke in the eye. See?"

Mr. Hinks regarded the effect of this coldly but firmly, and spatagain. 

"Understand me?" he enquired. 

"Don't recollect, " began Mr. Polly. 

"Don't recollect, be blowed! You flap your mouth a dam sight too much. This place gets more of your mouth than it wants.... Seen this?"

And Mr. Hinks, having displayed a freckled fist of extraordinary sizeand pugginess in an ostentatiously familiar manner to Mr. Polly'sclose inspection by sight and smell, turned it about this way and thatand shaken it gently for a moment or so, replaced it carefully in hispocket as if for future use, receded slowly and watchfully for a pace, and then turned away as if to other matters, and ceased to be even inoutward seeming a friend.... 

VI

Mr. Polly's intercourse with all his fellow tradesmen was tarnishedsooner or later by some such adverse incident, until not a friendremained to him, and loneliness made even the shop door terrible. Shops bankrupted all about him and fresh people came and newacquaintances sprang up, but sooner or later a discord was inevitable, the tension under which these badly fed, poorly housed, bored andbothered neighbours lived, made it inevitable. The mere fact that Mr. Polly had to see them every day, that there was no getting away fromthem, was in itself sufficient to make them almost unendurable to hisfrettingly active mind. 

Among other shopkeepers in the High Street there was Chuffles, thegrocer, a small, hairy, silently intent polygamist, who was givenrough music by the youth of the neighbourhood because of a scandalabout his wife's sister, and who was nevertheless totallyuninteresting, and Tonks, the second grocer, an old man with an older, very enfeebled wife, both submerged by piety. Tonks went bankrupt, andwas succeeded by a branch of the National Provision Company, with ayoung manager exactly like a fox, except that he barked. The toy andsweetstuff shop was kept by an old woman of repellent manners, and sowas the little fish shop at the end of the street. The Berlin-woolshop having gone bankrupt, became a newspaper shop, then fell to ahaberdasher in consumption, and finally to a stationer; the threeshops at the end of the street wallowed in and out of insolvency inthe hands of a bicycle repairer and dealer, a gramaphone dealer, atobacconist, a sixpenny-halfpenny bazaar-keeper, a shoemaker, agreengrocer, and the exploiter of a cinematograph peep-show--but noneof them supplied friendship to Mr. Polly. 

These adventurers in commerce were all more or less distraught souls, driving without intelligible comment before the gale of fate. The twomilkmen of Fishbourne were brothers who had quarrelled about theirfather's will, and started in opposition to each other; one was stonedeaf and no use to Mr. Polly, and the other was a sporting man with anatural dread of epithet who sided with Hinks. So it was all abouthim, on every hand it seemed were uncongenial people, uninterestingpeople, or people who conceived the deepest distrust and hostilitytowards him, a magic circle of suspicious, preoccupied and dehumanisedhumanity. So the poison in his system poisoned the world without. 

(But Boomer, the wine merchant, and Tashingford, the chemist, be itnoted, were fraught with pride, and held themselves to be a cut aboveMr. Polly. They never quarrelled with him, preferring to bearthemselves from the outset as though they had already done so. )

As his internal malady grew upon Mr. Polly and he became more and morea battle-ground of fermenting foods and warring juices, he came tohate the very sight, as people say, of every one of these neighbours. There they were, every day and all the days, just the same, echoinghis own stagnation. They pained him all round the top and back of hishead; they made his legs and arms weary and spiritless. The air wastasteless by reason of them. He lost his human kindliness. 

In the afternoons he would hover in the shop bored to death with hisbusiness and his home and Miriam, and yet afraid to go out because ofhis inflamed and magnified dislike and dread of these neighbours. Hecould not bring himself to go out and run the gauntlet of theobservant windows and the cold estranged eyes. 

One of his last friendships was with Rusper, the ironmonger. Ruspertook over Worthington's shop about three years after Mr. Polly opened. He was a tall, lean, nervous, convulsive man with an upturned, back-thrown, oval head, who read newspapers and the _Review ofReviews_ assiduously, had belonged to a Literary Society somewhereonce, and had some defect of the palate that at first gave hislightest word a charm and interest for Mr. Polly. It caused a peculiarclicking sound, as though he had something between a giggle and agas-meter at work in his neck. 

His literary admirations were not precisely Mr. Polly's literaryadmirations; he thought books were written to enshrine Great Thoughts, and that art was pedagogy in fancy dress, he had no sense of phrase orepithet or richness of texture, but still he knew there were books, hedid know there were books and he was full of large windy ideas of thesort he called "Modern (kik) Thought, " and seemed needlessly andhelplessly concerned about "(kik) the Welfare of the Race. "

Mr. Polly would dream about that (kik) at nights. 

It seemed to that undesirable mind of his that Rusper's head was themost egg-shaped head he had ever seen; the similarity weighed uponhim; and when he found an argument growing warm with Rusper he wouldsay: "Boil it some more, O' Man; boil it harder!" or "Six minutes atleast, " allusions Rusper could never make head or tail of, and got atlast to disregard as a part of Mr. Polly's general eccentricity. For along time that little tendency threw no shadow over their intercourse, but it contained within it the seeds of an ultimate disruption. 

Often during the days of this friendship Mr. Polly would leave hisshop and walk over to Mr. Rusper's establishment, and stand in hisdoorway and enquire: "Well, O' Man, how's the Mind of the Ageworking?" and get quite an hour of it, and sometimes Mr. Rusper wouldcome into the outfitter's shop with "Heard the (kik) latest?" andspend the rest of the morning. 

Then Mr. Rusper married, and he married very inconsiderately a womanwho was totally uninteresting to Mr. Polly. A coolness grew betweenthem from the first intimation of her advent. Mr. Polly couldn't helpthinking when he saw her that she drew her hair back from her foreheada great deal too tightly, and that her elbows were angular. His desirenot to mention these things in the apt terms that welled up so richlyin his mind, made him awkward in her presence, and that gave her animpression that he was hiding some guilty secret from her. She decidedhe must have a bad influence upon her husband, and she made it a pointto appear whenever she heard him talking to Rusper. 

One day they became a little heated about the German peril. 

"I lay (kik) they'll invade us, " said Rusper. 

"Not a bit of it. William's not the Zerxiacious sort. "

"You'll see, O' Man. "

"Just what I shan't do. "

"Before (kik) five years are out. "

"Not it. "

"Yes. "

"No. "

"Yes. "

"Oh! Boil it hard!" said Mr. Polly. 

Then he looked up and saw Mrs. Rusper standing behind the counter halfhidden by a trophy of spades and garden shears and a knife-cleaningmachine, and by her expression he knew instantly that she understood. 

The conversation paled and presently Mr. Polly withdrew. 

After that, estrangement increased steadily. 

Mr. Rusper ceased altogether to come over to the outfitter's, and Mr. Polly called upon the ironmonger only with the completest air ofcasuality. And everything they said to each other led now to flatcontradiction and raised voices. Rusper had been warned in vague andalarming terms that Mr. Polly insulted and made game of him; hecouldn't discover exactly where; and so it appeared to him now thatevery word of Mr. Polly's might be an insult meriting his resentment, meriting it none the less because it was masked and cloaked. 

Soon Mr. Polly's calls upon Mr. Rusper ceased also, and then Mr. Rusper, pursuing incomprehensible lines of thought, became afflictedwith a specialised shortsightedness that applied only to Mr. Polly. Hewould look in other directions when Mr. Polly appeared, and his largeoval face assumed an expression of conscious serenity and deliberatehappy unawareness that would have maddened a far less irritable personthan Mr. Polly. It evoked a strong desire to mock and ape, andproduced in his throat a cough of singular scornfulness, moreparticularly when Mr. Rusper also assisted, with an assumedunconsciousness that was all his own. 

Then one day Mr. Polly had a bicycle accident. 

His bicycle was now very old, and it is one of the concomitants of abicycle's senility that its free wheel should one day obstinatelycease to be free. It corresponds to that epoch in human decay when anold gentleman loses an incisor tooth. It happened just as Mr. Pollywas approaching Mr. Rusper's shop, and the untoward chance of a motorcar trying to pass a waggon on the wrong side gave Mr. Polly no choicebut to get on to the pavement and dismount. He was always accustomedto take his time and step off his left pedal at its lowest point, butthe jamming of the free wheel gear made that lowest moment atransitory one, and the pedal was lifting his foot for anotherrevolution before he realised what had happened. Before he coulddismount according to his habit the pedal had to make a revolution, and before it could make a revolution Mr. Polly found himself amongthe various sonorous things with which Mr. Rusper adorned the front ofhis shop, zinc dustbins, household pails, lawn mowers, rakes, spadesand all manner of clattering things. Before he got among them he hadone of those agonising moments of helpless wrath and suspense thatseem to last ages, in which one seems to perceive everything and thinkof nothing but words that are better forgotten. He sent a column ofpails thundering across the doorway and dismounted with one foot in asanitary dustbin amidst an enormous uproar of falling ironmongery. 

"Put all over the place!" he cried, and found Mr. Rusper emerging fromhis shop with the large tranquillities of his countenance puckered toanger, like the frowns in the brow of a reefing sail. He gesticulatedspeechlessly for a moment. 

"Kik--jer doing?" he said at last. 

"Tin mantraps!" said Mr. Polly. 

"Jer (kik) doing?"

"Dressing all over the pavement as though the blessed town belonged toyou! Ugh!"

And Mr. Polly in attempting a dignified movement realised hisentanglement with the dustbin for the first time. With a lowembittering expression he kicked his foot about in it for a momentvery noisily, and finally sent it thundering to the curb. On its wayit struck a pail or so. Then Mr. Polly picked up his bicycle andproposed to resume his homeward way. But the hand of Mr. Rusperarrested him. 

"Put it (kik) all (kik kik) back (kik). "

"Put it (kik) back yourself. "

"You got (kik) put it back. "

"Get out of the (kik) way. "

Mr. Rusper laid one hand on the bicycle handle, and the other grippedMr. Polly's collar urgently. Whereupon Mr. Polly said: "Leggo!" andagain, "D'you _hear_! Leggo!" and then drove his elbow withconsiderable force into the region of Mr. Rusper's midriff. WhereuponMr. Rusper, with a loud impassioned cry, resembling "Woo kik" morethan any other combination of letters, released the bicycle handle, seized Mr. Polly by the cap and hair and bore his head and shouldersdownward. Thereat Mr. Polly, emitting such words as everyone knows andnobody prints, butted his utmost into the concavity of Mr. Rusper, entwined a leg about him and after terrific moments of swayinginstability, fell headlong beneath him amidst the bicycles and pails. There on the pavement these inexpert children of a pacific age, untrained in arms and uninured to violence, abandoned themselves toamateurish and absurd efforts to hurt and injure one another--of whichthe most palpable consequences were dusty backs, ruffled hair and tornand twisted collars. Mr. Polly, by accident, got his finger into Mr. Rusper's mouth, and strove earnestly for some time to prolong thataperture in the direction of Mr. Rusper's ear before it occurred toMr. Rusper to bite him (and even then he didn't bite very hard), whileMr. Rusper concentrated his mind almost entirely on an effort to rubMr. Polly's face on the pavement. (And their positions bristled withchances of the deadliest sort!) They didn't from first to last drawblood. 

Then it seemed to each of them that the other had become endowed withmany hands and several voices and great accessions of strength. Theysubmitted to fate and ceased to struggle. They found themselves tornapart and held up by outwardly scandalised and inwardly delightedneighbours, and invited to explain what it was all about. 

"Got to (kik) puttem all back!" panted Mr. Rusper in the expert graspof Hinks. "Merely asked him to (kik) puttem all back. "

Mr. Polly was under restraint of little Clamp, of the toy shop, whowas holding his hands in a complex and uncomfortable manner that heafterwards explained to Wintershed was a combination of somethingromantic called "Ju-jitsu" and something else still more romanticcalled the "Police Grip. "

"Pails, " explained Mr. Polly in breathless fragments. "All over theroad. Pails. Bungs up the street with his pails. Look at them!"

"Deliber (kik) lib (kik) liberately rode into my goods (kik). Constantly (kik) annoying me (kik)!" said Mr. Rusper.... 

They were both tremendously earnest and reasonable in their manner. They wished everyone to regard them as responsible and intellectualmen acting for the love of right and the enduring good of the world. They felt they must treat this business as a profound and publiclysignificant affair. They wanted to explain and orate and show theentire necessity of everything they had done. Mr. Polly was convincedhe had never been so absolutely correct in all his life as when heplanted his foot in the sanitary dustbin, and Mr. Rusper consideredhis clutch at Mr. Polly's hair as the one faultless impulse in anotherwise undistinguished career. But it was clear in their minds theymight easily become ridiculous if they were not careful, if for asecond they stepped over the edge of the high spirit and pitilessdignity they had hitherto maintained. At any cost they perceived theymust not become ridiculous. 

Mr. Chuffles, the scandalous grocer, joined the throng about theprincipal combatants, mutely as became an outcast, and with a sad, distressed helpful expression picked up Mr. Polly's bicycle. Gambell'ssummer errand boy, moved by example, restored the dustbin and pails totheir self-respect. 

"'_E_ ought--'_e_ ought (kik) pick them up, " protested Mr. Rusper. 

"What's it all about?" said Mr. Hinks for the third time, shaking Mr. Rusper gently. "As 'e been calling you names?"

"Simply ran into his pails--as anyone might, " said Mr. Polly, "and outhe comes and scrags me!"

"(Kik) Assault!" said Mr. Rusper. 

"He assaulted _me_, " said Mr. Polly. 

"Jumped (kik) into my dus'bin!" said Mr. Rusper. "That assault? Orisn't it?"

"You better drop it, " said Mr. Hinks. 

"Great pity they can't be'ave better, both of 'em, " said Mr. Chuffles, glad for once to find himself morally unassailable. 

"Anyone see it begin?" said Mr. Wintershed. 

"_I_ was in the shop, " said Mrs. Rusper suddenly from the doorstep, piercing the little group of men and boys with the sharp horror of anunexpected woman's voice. "If a witness is wanted I suppose I've got atongue. I suppose I got a voice in seeing my own 'usband injured. Myhusband went out and spoke to Mr. Polly, who was jumping off hisbicycle all among our pails and things, and immediately 'e butted himin the stomach--immediately--most savagely--butted him. Just after hisdinner too and him far from strong. I could have screamed. But Ruspercaught hold of him right away, I will say that for Rusper.... "

"I'm going, " said Mr. Polly suddenly, releasing himself from theAnglo-Japanese grip and holding out his hands for his bicycle. 

"Teach you (kik) to leave things alone, " said Mr. Rusper with an airof one who has given a lesson. 

The testimony of Mrs. Rusper continued relentlessly in the background. 

"You'll hear of me through a summons, " said Mr. Polly, preparing towheel his bicycle. 

"(Kik) Me too, " said Mr. Rusper. 

Someone handed Mr. Polly a collar. "This yours?"

Mr. Polly investigated his neck. "I suppose it is. Anyone seen a tie?"

A small boy produced a grimy strip of spotted blue silk. 

"Human life isn't safe with you, " said Mr. Polly as a parting shot. 

"(Kik) Yours isn't, " said Mr. Rusper.... 

And they got small satisfaction out of the Bench, which refusedaltogether to perceive the relentless correctitude of the behaviour ofeither party, and reproved the eagerness of Mrs. Rusper--speaking toher gently, firmly but exasperatingly as "My Good Woman" and tellingher to "Answer the Question! Answer the Question!"

"Seems a Pity, " said the chairman, when binding them over to keep thepeace, "you can't behave like Respectable Tradesmen. Seems a GreatPity. Bad Example to the Young and all that. Don't do any Good to thetown, don't do any Good to yourselves, don't do any manner of Good, tohave all the Tradesmen in the Place scrapping about the Pavement of anAfternoon. Think we're letting you off very easily this time, and hopeit will be a Warning to you. Don't expect Men of your Position to comeup before us. Very Regrettable Affair. Eh?"

He addressed the latter enquiry to his two colleagues. 

"Exactly, exactly, " said the colleague to the right. 

"Er--(kik), " said Mr. Rusper. 

VII

But the disgust that overshadowed Mr. Polly's being as he sat upon thestile, had other and profounder justification than his quarrel withRusper and the indignity of appearing before the county bench. He wasfor the first time in his business career short with his rent for theapproaching quarter day, and so far as he could trust his own bandlingof figures he was sixty or seventy pounds on the wrong side ofsolvency. And that was the outcome of fifteen years of passiveendurance of dulness throughout the best years of his life! What wouldMiriam say when she learnt this, and was invited to face the prospectof exile--heaven knows what sort of exile!--from their present home?She would grumble and scold and become limply unhelpful, he knew, andnone the less so because he could not help things. She would say heought to have worked harder, and a hundred such exasperating pointlessthings. Such thoughts as these require no aid from undigested coldpork and cold potatoes and pickles to darken the soul, and with theseaids his soul was black indeed. 

"May as well have a bit of a walk, " said Mr. Polly at last, afternearly intolerable meditations, and sat round and put a leg over thestile. 

He remained still for some time before he brought over the other leg. 

"Kill myself, " he murmured at last. 

It was an idea that came back to his mind nowadays with a continuallyincreasing attractiveness--more particularly after meals. Life he felthad no further happiness to offer him. He hated Miriam, and there wasno getting away from her whatever might betide. And for the rest therewas toil and struggle, toil and struggle with a failing heart anddwindling courage, to sustain that dreary duologue. "Life's insured, "said Mr. Polly; "place is insured. I don't see it does any harm to heror anyone. "

He stuck his hands in his pockets. "Needn't hurt much, " he said. Hebegan to elaborate a plan. 

He found it quite interesting elaborating his plan. His countenancebecame less miserable and his pace quickened. 

There is nothing so good in all the world for melancholia as walking, and the exercise of the imagination in planning something presently tobe done, and soon the wrathful wretchedness had vanished from Mr. Polly's face. He would have to do the thing secretly and elaborately, because otherwise there might be difficulties about the lifeinsurance. He began to scheme how he could circumvent thatdifficulty.... 

He took a long walk, for after all what is the good of hurrying backto shop when you are not only insolvent but very soon to die? Hisdinner and the east wind lost their sinister hold upon his soul, andwhen at last he came back along the Fishbourne High Street, his facewas unusually bright and the craving hunger of the dyspeptic wasreturning. So he went into the grocer's and bought a ruddily decoratedtin of a brightly pink fishlike substance known as "Deep Sea Salmon. "This he was resolved to consume regardless of cost with vinegar andsalt and pepper as a relish to his supper. 

He did, and since he and Miriam rarely talked and Miriam thoughthonour and his recent behaviour demanded a hostile silence, he atefast, and copiously and soon gloomily. He ate alone, for sherefrained, to mark her sense of his extravagance. Then he prowled intothe High Street for a time, thought it an infernal place, tried hispipe and found it foul and bitter, and retired wearily to bed. 

He slept for an hour or so and then woke up to the contemplation ofMiriam's hunched back and the riddle of life, and this brightattractive idea of ending for ever and ever and ever all the thingsthat were locking him in, this bright idea that shone like a balefulstar above all the reek and darkness of his misery.... 

Chapter the Eighth

Making an End to Things

I

Mr. Polly designed his suicide with considerable care, and a quiteremarkable altruism. His passionate hatred for Miriam vanisheddirectly the idea of getting away from her for ever became clear inhis mind. He found himself full of solicitude then for her welfare. Hedid not want to buy his release at her expense. He had not theremotest intention of leaving her unprotected with a painfully deadhusband and a bankrupt shop on her hands. It seemed to him that hecould contrive to secure for her the full benefit of both his lifeinsurance and his fire insurance if he managed things in a tactfulmanner. He felt happier than he had done for years scheming out thisundertaking, albeit it was perhaps a larger and somberer kind ofhappiness than had fallen to his lot before. It amazed him to think hehad endured his monotony of misery and failure for so long. 

But there were some queer doubts and questions in the dim, half-litbackground of his mind that he had very resolutely to ignore. "Sick ofit, " he had to repeat to himself aloud, to keep his determinationclear and firm. His life was a failure, there was nothing more tohope for but unhappiness. Why shouldn't he?

His project was to begin the fire with the stairs that led from theground floor to the underground kitchen and scullery. This he wouldsoak with _paraffine_, and assist with firewood and paper, and a briskfire in the coal cellar underneath. He would smash a hole or so in thestairs to ventilate the blaze, and have a good pile of boxes andpaper, and a convenient chair or so in the shop above. He would havethe _paraffine_ can upset and the shop lamp, as if awaiting refilling, at a convenient distance in the scullery ready to catch. Then he wouldsmash the house lamp on the staircase, a fall with that in his handwas to be the ostensible cause of the blaze, and then he would cut histhroat at the top of the kitchen stairs, which would then become hisfuneral pyre. He would do all this on Sunday evening while Miriam wasat church, and it would appear that he had fallen downstairs with thelamp, and been burnt to death. There was really no flaw whatever thathe could see in the scheme. He was quite sure he knew how to cut histhroat, deep at the side and not to saw at the windpipe, and he wasreasonably sure it wouldn't hurt him very much. And then everythingwould be at an end. 

There was no particular hurry to get the thing done, of course, andmeanwhile he occupied his mind with possible variations of thescheme.... 

It needed a particularly dry and dusty east wind, a Sunday dinner ofexceptional virulence, a conclusive letter from Konk, Maybrick, Ghooland Gabbitas, his principal and most urgent creditors, and aconversation with Miriam arising out of arrears of rent and leading onto mutual character sketching, before Mr. Polly could be brought tothe necessary pitch of despair to carry out his plans. He went for anembittering walk, and came back to find Miriam in a bad temper overthe tea things, with the brewings of three-quarters of an hour in thepot, and hot buttered muffin gone leathery. He sat eating in silencewith his resolution made. 

"Coming to church?" said Miriam after she had cleared away. 

"Rather. I got a lot to be grateful for, " said Mr. Polly. 

"You got what you deserve, " said Miriam. 

"Suppose I have, " said Mr. Polly, and went and stared out of the backwindow at a despondent horse in the hotel yard. 

He was still standing there when Miriam came downstairs dressed forchurch. Something in his immobility struck home to her. "You'd bettercome to church than mope, " she said. 

"I shan't mope, " he answered. 

She remained still for a moment. Her presence irritated him. He feltthat in another moment he should say something absurd to her, makesome last appeal for that understanding she had never been able togive. "Oh! _go_ to church!" he said. 

In another moment the outer door slammed upon her. "Good riddance!"said Mr. Polly. 

He turned about. "I've had my whack, " he said. 

He reflected. "I don't see she'll have any cause to holler, " hesaid. "Beastly Home! Beastly Life!"

For a space he remained thoughtful. "Here goes!" he said at last. 

II

For twenty minutes Mr. Polly busied himself about the house, makinghis preparations very neatly and methodically. 

He opened the attic windows in order to make sure of a good draughtthrough the house, and drew down the blinds at the back and shut thekitchen door to conceal his arrangements from casual observation. Atthe end he would open the door on the yard and so make a clean cleardraught right through the house. He hacked at, and wedged off, thetread of a stair. He cleared out the coals from under the staircase, and built a neat fire of firewood and paper there, he splashed about_paraffine_ and arranged the lamps and can even as he had designed, and made a fine inflammable pile of things in the little parlourbehind the shop. "Looks pretty arsonical, " he said as he surveyed itall. "Wouldn't do to have a caller now. Now for the stairs!"

"Plenty of time, " he assured himself, and took the lamp which was toexplain the whole affair, and went to the head of the staircasebetween the scullery and the parlour. He sat down in the twilight withthe unlit lamp beside him and surveyed things. He must light the firein the coal cellar under the stairs, open the back door, then come upthem very quickly and light the _paraffine_ puddles on each step, thensit down here again and cut his throat. 

He drew his razor from his pocket and felt the edge. It wouldn't hurtmuch, and in ten minutes he would be indistinguishable ashes in theblaze. 

And this was the end of life for him!

The end! And it seemed to him now that life had never begun for him, never! It was as if his soul had been cramped and his eyes bandagedfrom the hour of his birth. Why had he lived such a life? Why had hesubmitted to things, blundered into things? Why had he never insistedon the things he thought beautiful and the things he desired, neversought them, fought for them, taken any risk for them, died ratherthan abandon them? They were the things that mattered. Safety did notmatter. A living did not matter unless there were things to livefor.... 

He had been a fool, a coward and a fool, he had been fooled too, forno one had ever warned him to take a firm hold upon life, no one hadever told him of the littleness of fear, or pain, or death; but whatwas the good of going through it now again? It was over and done with. 

The clock in the back parlour pinged the half hour. 

"Time!" said Mr. Polly, and stood up. 

For an instant he battled with an impulse to put it all back, hastily, guiltily, and abandon this desperate plan of suicide for ever. 

But Miriam would smell the _paraffine_!

"No way out this time, O' Man, " said Mr. Polly; and he went slowlydownstairs, matchbox in hand. 

He paused for five seconds, perhaps, to listen to noises in the yardof the Royal Fishbourne Hotel before he struck his match. It trembleda little in his hand. The paper blackened, and an edge of blue flameran outward and spread. The fire burnt up readily, and in an instantthe wood was crackling cheerfully. 

Someone might hear. He must hurry. 

He lit a pool of _paraffine_ on the scullery floor, and instantly anest of snaky, wavering blue flame became agog for prey. He went upthe stairs three steps at a time with one eager blue flicker inpursuit of him. He seized the lamp at the top. "Now!" he said andflung it smashing. The chimney broke, but the glass receiver stood theshock and rolled to the bottom, a potential bomb. Old Rumbold wouldhear that and wonder what it was!... He'd know soon enough!

Then Mr. Polly stood hesitating, razor in hand, and then sat down. Hewas trembling violently, but quite unafraid. 

He drew the blade lightly under one ear. "Lord!" but it stung like anettle!

Then he perceived a little blue thread of flame running up his leg. Itarrested his attention, and for a moment he sat, razor in hand, staring at it. It must be _paraffine_ on his trousers that had caughtfire on the stairs. Of course his legs were wet with _paraffine_! Hesmacked the flicker with his hand to put it out, and felt his leg burnas he did so. But his trousers still charred and glowed. It seemed tohim necessary that he must put this out before he cut his throat. Heput down the razor beside him to smack with both hands very eagerly. And as he did so a thin tall red flame came up through the hole in thestairs he had made and stood still, quite still as it seemed, andlooked at him. It was a strange-looking flame, a flattish salmoncolour, redly streaked. It was so queer and quiet mannered that thesight of it held Mr. Polly agape. 

"Whuff!" went the can of _paraffine_ below, and boiled over withstinking white fire. At the outbreak the salmon-coloured flamesshivered and ducked and then doubled and vanished, and instantly allthe staircase was noisily ablaze. 

Mr. Polly sprang up and backwards, as though the uprushing tongues offire were a pack of eager wolves. 

"Good Lord!" he cried like a man who wakes up from a dream. 

He swore sharply and slapped again at a recrudescent flame upon hisleg. 

"What the Deuce shall I do? I'm soaked with the confounded stuff!"

He had nerved himself for throat-cutting, but this was fire!

He wanted to delay things, to put them out for a moment while he didhis business. The idea of arresting all this hurry with water occurredto him. 

There was no water in the little parlour and none in the shop. Hehesitated for a moment whether he should not run upstairs to thebedrooms and get a ewer of water to throw on the flames. At this rateRumbold's would be ablaze in five minutes! Things were going all toofast for Mr. Polly. He ran towards the staircase door, and its hotbreath pulled him up sharply. Then he dashed out through his shop. Thecatch of the front door was sometimes obstinate; it was now, andinstantly he became frantic. He rattled and stormed and felt theparlour already ablaze behind him. In another moment he was in theHigh Street with the door wide open. 

The staircase behind him was crackling now like horsewhips and pistolshots. 

He had a vague sense that he wasn't doing as he had proposed, but thechief thing was his sense of that uncontrolled fire within. What washe going to do? There was the fire brigade station next door but one. 

The Fishbourne High Street had never seemed so empty. 

Far off at the corner by the God's Providence Inn a group of threestiff hobbledehoys in their black, best clothes, conversedintermittently with Taplow, the policeman. 

"Hi!" bawled Mr. Polly to them. "Fire! Fire!" and struck by a horriblethought, the thought of Rumbold's deaf mother-in-law upstairs, beganto bang and kick and rattle with the utmost fury at Rumbold's shopdoor. 

"Hi!" he repeated, "_Fire!_"

III

That was the beginning of the great Fishbourne fire, which burnt itsway sideways into Mr. Rusper's piles of crates and straw, andbackwards to the petrol and stabling of the Royal Fishbourne Hotel, and spread from that basis until it seemed half Fishbourne would beablaze. The east wind, which had been gathering in strength all thatday, fanned the flame; everything was dry and ready, and the littleshed beyond Rumbold's in which the local Fire Brigade kept its manual, was alight before the Fishbourne fire hose could be saved fromdisaster. In marvellously little time a great column of black smoke, shot with red streamers, rose out of the middle of the High Street, and all Fishbourne was alive with excitement. 

Much of the more respectable elements of Fishbourne society was inchurch or chapel; many, however, had been tempted by the blue sky andthe hard freshness of spring to take walks inland, and there had beenthe usual disappearance of loungers and conversationalists from thebeach and the back streets when at the hour of six the shooting ofbolts and the turning of keys had ended the British Ramadan, thatweekly interlude of drought our law imposes. The youth of the placewere scattered on the beach or playing in back yards, under threat iftheir clothes were dirtied, and the adolescent were disposed in pairsamong the more secluded corners to be found upon the outskirts of theplace. Several godless youths, seasick but fishing steadily, weretossing upon the sea in old Tarbold's, the infidel's, boat, and theClamps were entertaining cousins from Port Burdock. Such few visitorsas Fishbourne could boast in the spring were at church or on thebeach. To all these that column of smoke did in a manner addressitself. "Look here!" it said, "this, within limits, is your affair;what are you going to do?"

The three hobbledehoys, had it been a weekday and they in workingclothes, might have felt free to act, but the stiffness of black wasupon them and they simply moved to the corner by Rusper's to take abetter view of Mr. Polly beating at the door. The policeman was ayoung, inexpert constable with far too lively a sense of the publichouse. He put his head inside the Private Bar to the horror ofeveryone there. But there was no breach of the law, thank Heaven!"Polly's and Rumbold's on fire!" he said, and vanished again. A windowin the top story over Boomer's shop opened, and Boomer, captain of theFire Brigade, appeared, staring out with a blank expression. Stillstaring, he began to fumble with his collar and tie; manifestly he hadto put on his uniform. Hinks' dog, which had been lying on thepavement outside Wintershed's, woke up, and having regarded Mr. Pollysuspiciously for some time, growled nervously and went round thecorner into Granville Alley. Mr. Polly continued to beat and kick atRumbold's door. 

Then the public houses began to vomit forth the less desirableelements of Fishbourne society, boys and men were moved to run andshout, and more windows went up as the stir increased. Tashingford, the chemist, appeared at his door, in shirt sleeves and an apron, withhis photographic plate holders in his hand. And then like a vision ofpurpose came Mr. Gambell, the greengrocer, running out of Clayford'sAlley and buttoning on his jacket as he ran. His great brass fireman'shelmet was on his head, hiding it all but the sharp nose, the firmmouth, the intrepid chin. He ran straight to the fire station andtried the door, and turned about and met the eye of Boomer still athis upper window. "The key!" cried Mr. Gambell, "the key!"

Mr. Boomer made some inaudible explanation about his trousers and halfa minute. 

"Seen old Rumbold?" cried Mr. Polly, approaching Mr. Gambell. 

"Gone over Downford for a walk, " said Mr. Gambell. "He told me! Butlook 'ere! We 'aven't got the key!"

"Lord!" said Mr. Polly, and regarded the china shop with open eyes. He_knew_ the old woman must be there alone. He went back to the shopfront and stood surveying it in infinite perplexity. The otheractivities in the street did not interest him. A deaf old ladysomewhere upstairs there! Precious moments passing! Suddenly he wasstruck by an idea and vanished from public vision into the open doorof the Royal Fishbourne Tap. 

And now the street was getting crowded and people were laying theirhands to this and that. 

Mr. Rusper had been at home reading a number of tracts upon TariffReform, during the quiet of his wife's absence in church, and tryingto work out the application of the whole question to ironmongery. Heheard a clattering in the street and for a time disregarded it, untila cry of Fire! drew him to the window. He pencilled-marked the tractof Chiozza Money's that he was reading side by side with one by Mr. Holt Schooling, made a hasty note "Bal. Of Trade say 12, 000, 000" andwent to look out. Instantly he opened the window and ceased to believethe Fiscal Question the most urgent of human affairs. 

"Good (kik) Gud!" said Mr. Rusper. 

For now the rapidly spreading blaze had forced the partition into Mr. Rumbold's premises, swept across his cellar, clambered his garden wallby means of his well-tarred mushroom shed, and assailed the enginehouse. It stayed not to consume, but ran as a thing that seeks aquarry. Polly's shop and upper parts were already a furnace, and blacksmoke was coming out of Rumbold's cellar gratings. The fire in theengine house showed only as a sudden rush of smoke from the back, likesomething suddenly blown up. The fire brigade, still much understrength, were now hard at work in the front of the latter building;they had got the door open all too late, they had rescued the fireescape and some buckets, and were now lugging out their manual, withthe hose already a dripping mass of molten, flaring, stinking rubber. Boomer was dancing about and swearing and shouting; this direct attackupon his apparatus outraged his sense of chivalry. The rest of thebrigade hovered in a disheartened state about the rescued fire escape, and tried to piece Boomer's comments into some tangible instructions. 

"Hi!" said Rusper from the window. "Kik! What's up?"

Gambell answered him out of his helmet. "Hose!" he cried. "Hose gone!"

"I (kik) got hose!" cried Rusper. 

He had. He had a stock of several thousand feet of garden hose, ofvarious qualities and calibres, and now he felt was the time to useit. In another moment his shop door was open and he was hurling pails, garden syringes, and rolls of garden hose out upon the pavement. "(Kik), " he cried, "undo it!" to the gathering crowd in the roadway. 

They did. Presently a hundred ready hands were unrolling and spreadingand tangling up and twisting and hopelessly involving Mr. Rusper'sstock of hose, sustained by an unquenchable assurance that presentlyit would in some manner contain and convey water, and Mr. Rusper, onhis knees, (kiking) violently, became incredibly busy with wire andbrass junctions and all sorts of mysteries. 

"Fix it to the (kik) bathroom tap!" said Mr. Rusper. 

Next door to the fire station was Mantell and Throbson's, the littleFishbourne branch of that celebrated firm, and Mr. Boomer, seeking ina teeming mind for a plan of action, had determined to save thisbuilding. "Someone telephone to the Port Burdock and Hampstead-on-Seafire brigades, " he cried to the crowd and then to his fellows: "Cutaway the woodwork of the fire station!" and so led the way into theblaze with a whirling hatchet that effected wonders in no time inventilation. 

But it was not, after all, such a bad idea of his. Mantell andThrobsons was separated from the fire station in front by a coveredglass passage, and at the back the roof of a big outhouse sloped downto the fire station leads. The sturdy 'longshoremen, who made up thebulk of the fire brigade, assailed the glass roof of the passage withextraordinary gusto, and made a smashing of glass that drowned for atime the rising uproar of the flames. 

A number of willing volunteers started off to the new telephone officein obedience to Mr. Boomer's request, only to be told with coldofficial politeness by the young lady at the exchange that all thathad been done on her own initiative ten minutes ago. She parleyed withthese heated enthusiasts for a space, and then returned to the window. 

And indeed the spectacle was well worth looking at. The dusk wasfalling, and the flames were showing brilliantly at half a dozenpoints. The Royal Fishbourne Hotel Tap, which adjoined Mr. Polly tothe west, was being kept wet by the enthusiastic efforts of a stringof volunteers with buckets of water, and above at a bathroom windowthe little German waiter was busy with the garden hose. But Mr. Polly's establishment looked more like a house afire than most houseson fire contrive to look from start to finish. Every window showedeager flickering flames, and flames like serpents' tongues werelicking out of three large holes in the roof, which was alreadybeginning to fall in. Behind, larger and abundantly spark-shot gustsof fire rose from the fodder that was now getting alight in the RoyalFishbourne Hotel stables. Next door to Mr. Polly, Mr. Rumbold's housewas disgorging black smoke from the gratings that protected itsunderground windows, and smoke and occasional shivers of flame werealso coming out of its first-floor windows. The fire station wasbetter alight at the back than in front, and its woodwork burnt prettybriskly with peculiar greenish flickerings, and a pungent flavour. Inthe street an inaggressively disorderly crowd clambered over therescued fire escape and resisted the attempts of the three localconstables to get it away from the danger of Mr. Polly's totteringfaçade, a cluster of busy forms danced and shouted and advised on thenoisy and smashing attempt to cut off Mantell and Throbson's from thefire station that was still in ineffectual progress. Further a numberof people appeared to be destroying interminable red and grey snakesunder the heated direction of Mr. Rusper; it was as if the High Streethad a plague of worms, and beyond again the more timid and less activecrowded in front of an accumulation of arrested traffic. Most of themen were in Sabbatical black, and this and the white and starchedquality of the women and children in their best clothes gave a note ofceremony to the whole affair. 

For a moment the attention of the telephone clerk was held by theactivities of Mr. Tashingford, the chemist, who, regardless ofeveryone else, was rushing across the road hurling fire grenades intothe fire station and running back for more, and then her eyes liftedto the slanting outhouse roof that went up to a ridge behind theparapet of Mantell and Throbson's. An expression of incredulity cameinto the telephone operator's eyes and gave place to hard activity. She flung up the window and screamed out: "Two people on the roof upthere! Two people on the roof!"

IV

Her eyes had not deceived her. Two figures which had emerged from theupper staircase window of Mr. Rumbold's and had got after a perilouspaddle in his cistern, on to the fire station, were now slowly butresolutely clambering up the outhouse roof towards the back of themain premises of Messrs. Mantell and Throbson's. They clambered slowlyand one urged and helped the other, slipping and pausing ever andagain, amidst a constant trickle of fragments of broken tile. 

One was Mr. Polly, with his hair wildly disordered, his face coveredwith black smudges and streaked with perspiration, and his trouserlegs scorched and blackened; the other was an elderly lady, quietlybut becomingly dressed in black, with small white frills at her neckand wrists and a Sunday cap of ecru lace enlivened with a black velvetbow. Her hair was brushed back from her wrinkled brow and plastereddown tightly, meeting in a small knob behind; her wrinkled mouth borethat expression of supreme resolution common with the toothless aged. She was shaky, not with fear, but with the vibrations natural to heryears, and she spoke with the slow quavering firmness of the veryaged. 

"I don't mind scrambling, " she said with piping inflexibility, "but Ican't jump and I _wunt_ jump. "

"Scramble, old lady, then--scramble!" said Mr. Polly, pulling her arm. "It's one up and two down on these blessed tiles. "

"It's not what I'm used to, " she said. 

"Stick to it!" said Mr. Polly, "live and learn, " and got to the ridgeand grasped at her arm to pull her after him. 

"I can't jump, mind ye, " she repeated, pressing her lips together. "And old ladies like me mustn't be hurried. "

"Well, let's get as high as possible anyhow!" said Mr. Polly, urgingher gently upward. "Shinning up a water-spout in your line? Near asyou'll get to Heaven. "

"I _can't_ jump, " she said. "I can do anything but jump. "

"Hold on!" said Mr. Polly, "while I give you a boost. That's--wonderful. "

"So long as it isn't jumping.... "

The old lady grasped the parapet above, and there was a moment ofintense struggle. 

"Urup!" said Mr. Polly. "Hold on! Gollys! where's she gone to?... "

Then an ill-mended, wavering, yet very reassuring spring side bootappeared for an instant. 

"Thought perhaps there wasn't any roof there!" he explained, scrambling up over the parapet beside her. 

"I've never been out on a roof before, " said the old lady. "I'm alldisconnected. It's very bumpy. Especially that last bit. Can't we sithere for a bit and rest? I'm not the girl I useto be. "

"You sit here ten minutes, " shouted Mr. Polly, "and you'll pop like aroast chestnut. Don't understand me? _Roast chestnut!_ Roast chestnut!POP! There ought to be a limit to deafness. Come on round to thefront and see if we can find an attic window. Look at this smoke!"

"Nasty!" said the old lady, her eyes following his gesture, puckeringher face into an expression of great distaste. 

"Come on!"

"Can't hear a word you say. "

He pulled her arm. "Come on!"

She paused for a moment to relieve herself of a series of entirelyunexpected chuckles. "_Sich_ goings on!" she said, "I never did!Where's he going now?" and came along behind the parapet to the frontof the drapery establishment. 

Below, the street was now fully alive to their presence, andencouraged the appearance of their heads by shouts and cheers. A sortof free fight was going on round the fire escape, order represented byMr. Boomer and the very young policeman, and disorder by somepartially intoxicated volunteers with views of their own about themanipulation of the apparatus. Two or three lengths of Mr. Rusper'sgarden hose appeared to have twined themselves round the ladder. Mr. Polly watched the struggle with a certain impatience, and glanced everand again over his shoulder at the increasing volume of smoke andsteam that was pouring up from the burning fire station. He decided tobreak an attic window and get in, and so try and get down through theshop. He found himself in a little bedroom, and returned to fetch hischarge. For some time he could not make her understand his purpose. 

"Got to come at once!" he shouted. 

"I hain't '_ad_ _sich_ a time for years!" said the old lady. 

"We'll have to get down through the house!"

"Can't do no jumpin', " said the old lady. "No!"

She yielded reluctantly to his grasp. 

She stared over the parapet. "Runnin' and scurrying about like blackbeetles in a kitchin, " she said. 

"We've got to hurry. "

"Mr. Rumbold 'E's a very Quiet man. 'E likes everything Quiet. He'llbe surprised to see me 'ere! Why!--there 'e is!" She fumbled in hergarments mysteriously and at last produced a wrinkled pockethandkerchief and began to wave it. 

"Oh, come ON!" cried Mr. Polly, and seized her. 

He got her into the attic, but the staircase, he found, was full ofsuffocating smoke, and he dared not venture below the next floor. Hetook her into a long dormitory, shut the door on those pungent andpervasive fumes, and opened the window to discover the fire escape wasnow against the house, and all Fishbourne boiling with excitement asan immensely helmeted and active and resolute little figure ascended. In another moment the rescuer stared over the windowsill, heroic, butjust a trifle self-conscious and grotesque. 

"Lawks a mussy!" said the old lady. "Wonders and Wonders! Why! it'sMr. Gambell! 'Iding 'is 'ed in that thing! I _never_ did!"

"Can we get her out?" said Mr. Gambell. "There's not much time. "

"He might git stuck in it. "

"_You'll_ get stuck in it, " said Mr. Polly, "come along!"

"Not for jumpin' I don't, " said the old lady, understanding hisgestures rather than his words. "Not a bit of it. I bain't no good atjumping and I _wunt_. "

They urged her gently but firmly towards the window. 

"You _lemme_ do it my own way, " said the old lady at the sill.... 

"I could do it better if e'd take it off. "

"Oh! _carm_ on!"

"It's wuss than Carter's stile, " she said, "before they mended it. With a cow a-looking at you. "

Mr. Gambell hovered protectingly below. Mr. Polly steered her agedlimbs from above. An anxious crowd below babbled advice and did itsbest to upset the fire escape. Within, streamers of black smoke werepouring up through the cracks in the floor. For some seconds the worldwaited while the old lady gave herself up to reckless mirth again. "_Sich_ times!" she said, and "_Poor_ Rumbold!"

Slowly they descended, and Mr. Polly remained at the post of dangersteadying the long ladder until the old lady was in safety below andsheltered by Mr. Rumbold (who was in tears) and the young policemanfrom the urgent congratulations of the crowd. The crowd was full of animpotent passion to participate. Those nearest wanted to shake herhand, those remoter cheered. 

"The fust fire I was ever in and likely to be my last. It's ascurryin', 'urryin' business, but I'm real glad I haven't missed it, "said the old lady as she was borne rather than led towards the refugeof the Temperance Hotel. 

Also she was heard to remark: "'E was saying something about 'otchestnuts. _I_ 'aven't 'ad no 'ot chestnuts. "

Then the crowd became aware of Mr. Polly awkwardly negotiating the toprungs of the fire escape. "'Ere 'e comes!" cried a voice, and Mr. Polly descended into the world again out of the conflagration he hadlit to be his funeral pyre, moist, excited, and tremendously alive, amidst a tempest of applause. As he got lower and lower the crowdhowled like a pack of dogs at him. Impatient men unable to wait forhim seized and shook his descending boots, and so brought him to earthwith a run. He was rescued with difficulty from an enthusiast whowished to slake at his own expense and to his own accompaniment athirst altogether heroic. He was hauled into the Temperance Hotel andflung like a sack, breathless and helpless, into the tear-wet embraceof Miriam. 

V

With the dusk and the arrival of some county constabulary, and firstone and presently two other fire engines from Port Burdock andHampstead-on-Sea, the local talent of Fishbourne found itself forcedback into a secondary, less responsible and more observant rôle. Iwill not pursue the story of the fire to its ashes, nor will I do morethan glance at the unfortunate Mr. Rusper, a modern Laocoon, vainlytrying to retrieve his scattered hose amidst the tramplings andrushings of the Port Burdock experts. 

In a small sitting-room of the Fishbourne Temperance Hotel a littlegroup of Fishbourne tradesmen sat and conversed in fragments and anonwent to the window and looked out upon the smoking desolation of theirhomes across the way, and anon sat down again. They and their familieswere the guests of old Lady Bargrave, who had displayed the utmostsympathy and interest in their misfortunes. She had taken severalpeople into her own house at Everdean, had engaged the TemperanceHotel as a temporary refuge, and personally superintended the housingof Mantell and Throbson's homeless assistants. The Temperance Hotelbecame and remained extremely noisy and congested, with people sittingabout anywhere, conversing in fragments and totally unable to getthemselves to bed. The manager was an old soldier, and following thebest traditions of the service saw that everyone had hot cocoa. Hotcocoa seemed to be about everywhere, and it was no doubt veryheartening and sustaining to everyone. When the manager detectedanyone disposed to be drooping or pensive he exhorted that person atonce to drink further hot cocoa and maintain a stout heart. 

The hero of the occasion, the centre of interest, was Mr. Polly. Forhe had not only caused the fire by upsetting a lighted lamp, scorchinghis trousers and narrowly escaping death, as indeed he had nowexplained in detail about twenty times, but he had further thought atonce of that amiable but helpless old lady next door, had shown theutmost decision in making his way to her over the yard wall of theRoyal Fishbourne Hotel, and had rescued her with persistence andvigour in spite of the levity natural to her years. Everyone thoughtwell of him and was anxious to show it, more especially by shaking hishand painfully and repeatedly. Mr. Rumbold, breaking a silence ofnearly fifteen years, thanked him profusely, said he had neverunderstood him properly and declared he ought to have a medal. Thereseemed to be a widely diffused idea that Mr. Polly ought to have amedal. Hinks thought so. He declared, moreover, and with the utmostemphasis, that Mr. Polly had a crowded and richly decoratedinterior--or words to that effect. There was something apologetic inthis persistence; it was as if he regretted past intimations that Mr. Polly was internally defective and hollow. He also said that Mr. Pollywas a "white man, " albeit, as he developed it, with a liver of thedeepest chromatic satisfactions. 

Mr. Polly wandered centrally through it all, with his face washed andhis hair carefully brushed and parted, looking modest and more than alittle absent-minded, and wearing a pair of black dress trousersbelonging to the manager of the Temperance Hotel, --a larger man thanhimself in every way. 

He drifted upstairs to his fellow-tradesmen, and stood for a timestaring into the littered street, with its pools of water andextinguished gas lamps. His companions in misfortune resumed afragmentary disconnected conversation. They touched now on one aspectof the disaster and now on another, and there were intervals ofsilence. More or less empty cocoa cups were distributed over thetable, mantelshelf and piano, and in the middle of the table was a tinof biscuits, into which Mr. Rumbold, sitting round-shoulderedly, dipped ever and again in an absent-minded way, and munched like adistant shooting of coals. It added to the solemnity of the affairthat nearly all of them were in their black Sunday clothes; littleClamp was particularly impressive and dignified in a wide open frockcoat, a Gladstone-shaped paper collar, and a large white and blue tie. They felt that they were in the presence of a great disaster, the sortof disaster that gets into the papers, and is even illustrated byblurred photographs of the crumbling ruins. In the presence of thatsort of disaster all honourable men are lugubrious and sententious. 

And yet it is impossible to deny a certain element of elation. Not oneof those excellent men but was already realising that a great door hadopened, as it were, in the opaque fabric of destiny, that they were toget their money again that had seemed sunken for ever beyond any hopein the deeps of retail trade. Life was already in their imaginationrising like a Phoenix from the flames. 

"I suppose there'll be a public subscription, " said Mr. Clamp. 

"Not for those who're insured, " said Mr. Wintershed. 

"I was thinking of them assistants from Mantell and Throbson's. Theymust have lost nearly everything. "

"They'll be looked after all right, " said Mr. Rumbold. "Never fear. "

Pause. 

"_I'm_ insured, " said Mr. Clamp, with unconcealed satisfaction. "RoyalSalamander. "

"Same here, " said Mr. Wintershed. 

"Mine's the Glasgow Sun, " Mr. Hinks remarked. "Very good company. "

"You insured, Mr. Polly?"

"He deserves to be, " said Rumbold. 

"Ra-ther, " said Hinks. "Blowed if he don't. Hard lines it _would_be--if there wasn't something for him. "

"Commercial and General, " answered Mr. Polly over his shoulder, stillstaring out of the window. "Oh! I'm all right. "

The topic dropped for a time, though manifestly it continued toexercise their minds. 

"It's cleared me out of a lot of old stock, " said Mr. Wintershed;"that's one good thing. "

The remark was felt to be in rather questionable taste, and still moreso was his next comment. 

"Rusper's a bit sick it didn't reach '_im_. "

Everyone looked uncomfortable, and no one was willing to point thereason why Rusper should be a bit sick. 

"Rusper's been playing a game of his own, " said Hinks. "Wonder what hethought he was up to! Sittin' in the middle of the road with a pair oftweezers he was, and about a yard of wire--mending somethin'. Wonderhe warn't run over by the Port Burdock engine. "

Presently a little chat sprang up upon the causes of fires, and Mr. Polly was moved to tell how it had happened for the one and twentiethtime. His story had now become as circumstantial and exact as theevidence of a police witness. "Upset the lamp, " he said. "I'd justlighted it, I was going upstairs, and my foot slipped against whereone of the treads was a bit rotten, and down I went. Thing was aflarein a moment!... "

He yawned at the end of the discussion, and moved doorward. 

"So long, " said Mr. Polly. 

"Good night, " said Mr. Rumbold. "You played a brave man's part! If youdon't get a medal--"

He left an eloquent pause. 

"'Ear, 'ear!" said Mr. Wintershed and Mr. Clamp. "Goo'night, O' Man, "said Mr. Hinks. 

"Goo'night All, " said Mr. Polly ... 

He went slowly upstairs. The vague perplexity common to popular heroespervaded his mind. He entered the bedroom and turned up the electriclight. It was quite a pleasant room, one of the best in the TemperanceHotel, with a nice clean flowered wallpaper, and a very largelooking-glass. Miriam appeared to be asleep, and her shoulders werehumped up under the clothes in a shapeless, forbidding lump that Mr. Polly had found utterly loathsome for fifteen years. He went softlyover to the dressing-table and surveyed himself thoughtfully. Presently he hitched up the trousers. "Miles too big for me, " heremarked. "Funny not to have a pair of breeches of one's own.... Likebeing born again. Naked came I into the world.... "

Miriam stirred and rolled over, and stared at him. 

"Hello!" she said. 

"Hello. "

"Come to bed?"

"It's three. "

Pause, while Mr. Polly disrobed slowly. 

"I been thinking, " said Miriam, "It isn't going to be so bad afterall. We shall get your insurance. We can easy begin all over again. "

"H'm, " said Mr. Polly. 

She turned her face away from him and reflected. 

"Get a better house, " said Miriam, regarding the wallpaper pattern. "I've always 'ated them stairs. "

Mr. Polly removed a boot. 

"Choose a better position where there's more doing, " murmuredMiriam.... 

"Not half so bad, " she whispered.... 

"You _wanted_ stirring up, " she said, half asleep.... 

It dawned upon Mr. Polly for the first time that he had forgottensomething. 

He ought to have cut his throat!

The fact struck him as remarkable, but as now no longer of anyparticular urgency. It seemed a thing far off in the past, and hewondered why he had not thought of it before. Odd thing life is! If hehad done it he would never have seen this clean and agreeableapartment with the electric light.... His thoughts wandered into aquestion of detail. Where could he have put the razor down? Somewherein the little room behind the shop, he supposed, but he could notthink where more precisely. Anyhow it didn't matter now. 

He undressed himself calmly, got into bed, and fell asleep almostimmediately. 

Chapter the Ninth

The Potwell Inn

I

But when a man has once broken through the paper walls of everydaycircumstance, those unsubstantial walls that hold so many of ussecurely prisoned from the cradle to the grave, he has made adiscovery. If the world does not please you _you can change it_. Determine to alter it at any price, and you can change it altogether. You may change it to something sinister and angry, to somethingappalling, but it may be you will change it to something brighter, something more agreeable, and at the worst something much moreinteresting. There is only one sort of man who is absolutely to blamefor his own misery, and that is the man who finds life dull anddreary. There are no circumstances in the world that determined actioncannot alter, unless perhaps they are the walls of a prison cell, andeven those will dissolve and change, I am told, into the infirmarycompartment at any rate, for the man who can fast with resolution. Igive these things as facts and information, and with no moralintimations. And Mr. Polly lying awake at nights, with a renewedindigestion, with Miriam sleeping sonorously beside him and a generalair of inevitableness about his situation, saw through it, understoodthere was no inevitable any more, and escaped his former despair. 

He could, for example, "clear out. "

It became a wonderful and alluring phrase to him: "clear out!"

Why had he never thought of clearing out before?

He was amazed and a little shocked at the unimaginative andsuperfluous criminality in him that had turned old cramped andstagnant Fishbourne into a blaze and new beginnings. (I wish from thebottom of my heart I could add that he was properly sorry. ) Butsomething constricting and restrained seemed to have been destroyed bythat flare. _Fishbourne wasn't the world_. That was the new, theessential fact of which he had lived so lamentably in ignorance. Fishbourne as he had known it and hated it, so that he wanted to killhimself to get out of it, _wasn't the world_. 

The insurance money he was to receive made everything humane andkindly and practicable. He would "clear out, " with justice andhumanity. He would take exactly twenty-one pounds, and all the rest hewould leave to Miriam. That seemed to him absolutely fair. Withouthim, she could do all sorts of things--all the sorts of things she wasconstantly urging him to do. 

And he would go off along the white road that led to Garchester, andon to Crogate and so to Tunbridge Wells, where there was a Toad Rockhe had heard of, but never seen. (It seemed to him this must needs bea marvel. ) And so to other towns and cities. He would walk and loiterby the way, and sleep in inns at night, and get an odd job here andthere and talk to strange people. Perhaps he would get quite a lot ofwork and prosper, and if he did not do so he would lie down in frontof a train, or wait for a warm night, and then fall into some smooth, broad river. Not so bad as sitting down to a dentist, not nearly sobad. And he would never open a shop any more. Never!

So the possibilities of the future presented themselves to Mr. Pollyas he lay awake at nights. 

It was springtime, and in the woods so soon as one got out of reach ofthe sea wind, there would be anémones and primroses. 

II

A month later a leisurely and dusty tramp, plump equatorially andslightly bald, with his hands in his pockets and his lips puckered toa contemplative whistle, strolled along the river bank betweenUppingdon and Potwell. It was a profusely budding spring day andgreens such as God had never permitted in the world before in humanmemory (though indeed they come every year), were mirrored vividly ina mirror of equally unprecedented brown. For a time the wandererstopped and stood still, and even the thin whistle died away from hislips as he watched a water vole run to and fro upon a little headlandacross the stream. The vole plopped into the water and swam and divedand only when the last ring of its disturbance had vanished did Mr. Polly resume his thoughtful course to nowhere in particular. 

For the first time in many years he had been leading a healthy humanlife, living constantly in the open air, walking every day for eightor nine hours, eating sparingly, accepting every conversationalopportunity, not even disdaining the discussion of possible work. Andbeyond mending a hole in his coat that he had made while negotiatingbarbed wire, with a borrowed needle and thread in a lodging house, hehad done no work at all. Neither had he worried about business norabout time and seasons. And for the first time in his life he had seenthe Aurora Borealis. 

So far the holiday had cost him very little. He had arranged it on aplan that was entirely his own. He had started with four five-poundnotes and a pound divided into silver, and he had gone by train fromFishbourne to Ashington. At Ashington he had gone to the post-office, obtained a registered letter, and sent his four five-pound notes witha short brotherly note addressed to himself at Gilhampton Post-office. He sent this letter to Gilhampton for no other reason in the worldthan that he liked the name of Gilhampton and the rural suggestion ofits containing county, which was Sussex, and having so despatched it, he set himself to discover, mark down and walk to Gilhampton, and sorecover his resources. And having got to Gilhampton at last, hechanged his five-pound note, bought four pound postal orders, andrepeated his manoeuvre with nineteen pounds. 

After a lapse of fifteen years he rediscovered this interesting world, about which so many people go incredibly blind and bored. He wentalong country roads while all the birds were piping and chirruping andcheeping and singing, and looked at fresh new things, and felt ashappy and irresponsible as a boy with an unexpected half-holiday. Andif ever the thought of Miriam returned to him he controlled his mind. He came to country inns and sat for unmeasured hours talking of thisand that to those sage carters who rest for ever in the taps ofcountry inns, while the big sleek brass jingling horses wait patientlyoutside with their waggons; he got a job with some van people who werewandering about the country with swings and a steam roundabout andremained with them for three days, until one of their dogs took aviolent dislike to him and made his duties unpleasant; he talked totramps and wayside labourers, he snoozed under hedges by day and inouthouses and hayricks at night, and once, but only once, he slept ina casual ward. He felt as the etiolated grass and daisies must do whenyou move the garden roller away to a new place. 

He gathered a quantity of strange and interesting memories. 

He crossed some misty meadows by moonlight and the mist lay low on thegrass, so low that it scarcely reached above his waist, and houses andclumps of trees stood out like islands in a milky sea, so sharplydenned was the upper surface of the mistbank. He came nearer andnearer to a strange thing that floated like a boat upon this magiclake, and behold! something moved at the stern and a rope was whiskedat the prow, and it had changed into a pensive cow, drowsy-eyed, regarding him.... 

He saw a remarkable sunset in a new valley near Maidstone, a very redand clear sunset, a wide redness under a pale cloudless heaven, andwith the hills all round the edge of the sky a deep purple blue andclear and flat, looking exactly as he had seen mountains painted inpictures. He seemed transported to some strange country, and wouldhave felt no surprise if the old labourer he came upon leaningsilently over a gate had addressed him in an unfamiliar tongue.... 

Then one night, just towards dawn, his sleep upon a pile of brushwoodwas broken by the distant rattle of a racing motor car breaking allthe speed regulations, and as he could not sleep again, he got up andwalked into Maidstone as the day came. He had never been abroad in atown at half-past two in his life before, and the stillness ofeverything in the bright sunrise impressed him profoundly. At onecorner was a startling policeman, standing in a doorway quitemotionless, like a waxen image. Mr. Polly wished him "good morning"unanswered, and went down to the bridge over the Medway and sat on theparapet very still and thoughtful, watching the town awaken, andwondering what he should do if it didn't, if the world of men neverwoke again.... 

One day he found himself going along a road, with a wide space ofsprouting bracken and occasional trees on either side, and suddenlythis road became strangely, perplexingly familiar. "Lord!" he said, and turned about and stood. "It can't be. "

He was incredulous, then left the road and walked along a scarcelyperceptible track to the left, and came in half a minute to an oldlichenous stone wall. It seemed exactly the bit of wall he had knownso well. It might have been but yesterday he was in that place; thereremained even a little pile of wood. It became absurdly the same wood. The bracken perhaps was not so high, and most of its fronds stilluncoiled; that was all. Here he had stood, it seemed, and there shehad sat and looked down upon him. Where was she now, and what hadbecome of her? He counted the years back and marvelled that beautyshould have called to him with so imperious a voice--and signifiednothing. 

He hoisted himself with some little difficulty to the top of the wall, and saw off under the beech trees two schoolgirls--small, insignificant, pig-tailed creatures, with heads of blond and black, with their arms twined about each other's necks, no doubt telling eachother the silliest secrets. 

But that girl with the red hair--was she a countess? was she a queen?Children perhaps? Had sorrow dared to touch her?

Had she forgotten altogether?... 

A tramp sat by the roadside thinking, and it seemed to the man in thepassing motor car he must needs be plotting for another pot of beer. But as a matter of fact what the tramp was saying to himself over andover again was a variant upon a well-known Hebrew word. 

"Itchabod, " the tramp was saying in the voice of one who reasons onthe side of the inevitable. "It's Fair Itchabod, O' Man. There's nogoing back to it. "

III

It was about two o'clock in the afternoon one hot day in high May whenMr. Polly, unhurrying and serene, came to that broad bend of the riverto which the little lawn and garden of the Potwell Inn run down. Hestopped at the sight of the place with its deep tiled roof, nestlingunder big trees--you never get a decently big, decently shaped tree bythe seaside--its sign towards the roadway, its sun-blistered greenbench and tables, its shapely white windows and its row of upshootinghollyhock plants in the garden. A hedge separated it from abuttercup-yellow meadow, and beyond stood three poplars in a groupagainst the sky, three exceptionally tall, graceful and harmoniouspoplars. It is hard to say what there was about them that made them sobeautiful to Mr. Polly; but they seemed to him to touch a pleasantscene to a distinction almost divine. He remained admiring them for along time. At last the need for coarser aesthetic satisfactions arosein him. 

"Provinder, " he whispered, drawing near to the Inn. "Cold sirlion forchoice. And nut-brown brew and wheaten bread. "

The nearer he came to the place the more he liked it. The windows onthe ground floor were long and low, and they had pleasing red blinds. The green tables outside were agreeably ringed with memories of formerdrinks, and an extensive grape vine spread level branches across thewhole front of the place. Against the wall was a broken oar, twoboat-hooks and the stained and faded red cushions of a pleasure boat. One went up three steps to the glass-panelled door and peeped into abroad, low room with a bar and beer engine, behind which were manybright and helpful looking bottles against mirrors, and great andlittle pewter measures, and bottles fastened in brass wire upside downwith their corks replaced by taps, and a white china cask labelled"Shrub, " and cigar boxes and boxes of cigarettes, and a couple of Tobyjugs and a beautifully coloured hunting scene framed and glazed, showing the most elegant and beautiful people taking Piper's CherryBrandy, and cards such as the law requires about the dilution ofspirits and the illegality of bringing children into bars, andsatirical verses about swearing and asking for credit, and three verybright red-cheeked wax apples and a round-shaped clock. 

But these were the mere background to the really pleasant thing in thespectacle, which was quite the plumpest woman Mr. Polly had ever seen, seated in an armchair in the midst of all these bottles and glassesand glittering things, peacefully and tranquilly, and without theslightest loss of dignity, asleep. Many people would have called hera fat woman, but Mr. Polly's innate sense of epithet told him from theoutset that plump was the word. She had shapely brows and a straight, well-shaped nose, kind lines and contentment about her mouth, andbeneath it the jolly chins clustered like chubby little cherubim aboutthe feet of an Assumptioning-Madonna. Her plumpness was firm and pinkand wholesome, and her hands, dimpled at every joint, were clasped infront of her; she seemed as it were to embrace herself with infiniteconfidence and kindliness as one who knew herself good in substance, good in essence, and would show her gratitude to God by that readyacceptance of all that he had given her. Her head was a little on oneside, not much, but just enough to speak of trustfulness, and rob herof the stiff effect of self-reliance. And she slept. 

"_My_ sort, " said Mr. Polly, and opened the door very softly, dividedbetween the desire to enter and come nearer and an instinctiveindisposition to break slumbers so manifestly sweet and satisfying. 

She awoke with a start, and it amazed Mr. Polly to see swift terrorflash into her eyes. Instantly it had gone again. 

"Law!" she said, her face softening with relief, "I thought you wereJim. "

"I'm never Jim, " said Mr. Polly. 

"You've got his sort of hat. "

"Ah!" said Mr. Polly, and leant over the bar. 

"It just came into my head you was Jim, " said the plump lady, dismissed the topic and stood up. "I believe I was having fortywinks, " she said, "if all the truth was told. What can I do for you?"

"Cold meat?" said Mr. Polly. 

"There _is_ cold meat, " the plump woman admitted. 

"And room for it. "

The plump woman came and leant over the bar and regarded himjudicially, but kindly. "There's some cold boiled beef, " she said, andadded: "A bit of crisp lettuce?"

"New mustard, " said Mr. Polly. 

"And a tankard!"

"A tankard. "

They understood each other perfectly. 

"Looking for work?" asked the plump woman. 

"In a way, " said Mr. Polly. 

They smiled like old friends. 

Whatever the truth may be about love, there is certainly such a thingas friendship at first sight. They liked each other's voices, theyliked each other's way of smiling and speaking. 

"It's such beautiful weather this spring, " said Mr. Polly, explainingeverything. 

"What sort of work do you want?" she asked. 

"I've never properly thought that out, " said Mr. Polly. "I've beenlooking round--for Ideas. "

"Will you have your beef in the tap or outside? That's the tap. "

Mr. Polly had a glimpse of an oaken settle. "In the tap will behandier for you, " he said. 

"Hear that?" said the plump lady. 

"Hear what?"

"Listen. "

Presently the silence was broken by a distant howl. "Oooooo-_ver_!""Eh?" she said. 

He nodded. 

"That's the ferry. And there isn't a ferryman. "

"Could I?"

"Can you punt?"

"Never tried. "

"Well--pull the pole out before you reach the end of the punt, that'sall. Try. "

Mr. Polly went out again into the sunshine. 

At times one can tell so much so briefly. Here are the factsthen--bare. He found a punt and a pole, got across to the steps on theopposite side, picked up an elderly gentleman in an alpaca jacket anda pith helmet, cruised with him vaguely for twenty minutes, conveyedhim tortuously into the midst of a thicket of forget-me-not spangledsedges, splashed some water-weed over him, hit him twice with the puntpole, and finally landed him, alarmed but abusive, in treacherous soilat the edge of a hay meadow about forty yards down stream, where heimmediately got into difficulties with a noisy, aggressive littlewhite dog, which was guardian of a jacket. 

Mr. Polly returned in a complicated manner to his moorings. 

He found the plump woman rather flushed and tearful, and seated at oneof the green tables outside. 

"I been laughing at you, " she said. 

"What for?" asked Mr. Polly. 

"I ain't 'ad such a laugh since Jim come 'ome. When you 'it 'is 'ed, it 'urt my side. "

"It didn't hurt his head--not particularly. "

She waved her head. "Did you charge him anything?"

"Gratis, " said Mr. Polly. "I never thought of it. "

The plump woman pressed her hands to her sides and laughed silentlyfor a space. "You ought to have charged him sumpthing, " she said. "Youbetter come and have your cold meat, before you do any more puntin'. You and me'll get on together. "

Presently she came and stood watching him eat. "You eat better thanyou punt, " she said, and then, "I dessay you could learn to punt. "

"Wax to receive and marble to retain, " said Mr. Polly. "This beef is aBit of All Right, Ma'm. I could have done differently if I hadn't beenpunting on an empty stomach. There's a lear feeling as the pole goesin--"

"I've never held with fasting, " said the plump woman. 

"You want a ferryman?"

"I want an odd man about the place. "

"I'm odd, all right. What's your wages?"

"Not much, but you get tips and pickings. I've a sort of feeling itwould suit you. "

"I've a sort of feeling it would. What's the duties? Fetch and carry?Ferry? Garden? Wash bottles? _Ceteris paribus?_"

"That's about it, " said the fat woman. 

"Give me a trial. "

"I've more than half a mind. Or I wouldn't have said anything aboutit. I suppose you're all right. You've got a sort of half-respectablelook about you. I suppose you 'aven't _done_ anything. "

"Bit of Arson, " said Mr. Polly, as if he jested. 

"So long as you haven't the habit, " said the plump woman. 

"My first time, M'am, " said Mr. Polly, munching his way through anexcellent big leaf of lettuce. "And my last. "

"It's all right if you haven't been to prison, " said the plump woman. "It isn't what a man's happened to do makes 'im bad. We all happen todo things at times. It's bringing it home to him, and spoiling hisself-respect does the mischief. You don't _look_ a wrong 'un. 'Ave youbeen to prison?"

"Never. "

"Nor a reformatory? Nor any institution?"

"Not me. Do I _look_ reformed?"

"Can you paint and carpenter a bit?"

"Well, I'm ripe for it. "

"Have a bit of cheese?"

"If I might. "

And the way she brought the cheese showed Mr. Polly that the businesswas settled in her mind. 

He spent the afternoon exploring the premises of the Potwell Inn andlearning the duties that might be expected of him, such as Stockholmtarring fences, digging potatoes, swabbing out boats, helping peopleland, embarking, landing and time-keeping for the hirers of two rowingboats and one Canadian canoe, baling out the said vessels andconcealing their leaks and defects from prospective hirers, persuadinginexperienced hirers to start down stream rather than up, repairingrowlocks and taking inventories of returning boats with a view tosupplementary charges, cleaning boots, sweeping chimneys, house-painting, cleaning windows, sweeping out and sanding the tap andbar, cleaning pewter, washing glasses, turpentining woodwork, whitewashing generally, plumbing and engineering, repairing locks andclocks, waiting and tapster's work generally, beating carpets andmats, cleaning bottles and saving corks, taking into the cellar, moving, tapping and connecting beer casks with their engines, blockingand destroying wasps' nests, doing forestry with several trees, drowning superfluous kittens, and dog-fancying as required, assistingin the rearing of ducklings and the care of various poultry, bee-keeping, stabling, baiting and grooming horses and asses, cleaningand "garing" motor cars and bicycles, inflating tires and repairingpunctures, recovering the bodies of drowned persons from the river asrequired, and assisting people in trouble in the water, first-aid andsympathy, improvising and superintending a bathing station forvisitors, attending inquests and funerals in the interests of theestablishment, scrubbing floors and all the ordinary duties of ascullion, the ferry, chasing hens and goats from the adjacent cottagesout of the garden, making up paths and superintending drainage, gardening generally, delivering bottled beer and soda water syphons inthe neighbourhood, running miscellaneous errands, removing drunken andoffensive persons from the premises by tact or muscle as occasionrequired, keeping in with the local policemen, defending the premisesin general and the orchard in particular from depredators.... 

"Can but try it, " said Mr. Polly towards tea time. "When there'snothing else on hand I suppose I might do a bit of fishing. "

IV

Mr. Polly was particularly charmed by the ducklings. 

They were piping about among the vegetables in the company of theirfoster mother, and as he and the plump woman came down the garden paththe little creatures mobbed them, and ran over their boots and inbetween Mr. Polly's legs, and did their best to be trodden upon andkilled after the manner of ducklings all the world over. Mr. Polly hadnever been near young ducklings before, and their extreme blondnessand the delicate completeness of their feet and beaks filled him withadmiration. It is open to question whether there is anything morefriendly in the world than a very young duckling. It was with theutmost difficulty that he tore himself away to practise punting, withthe plump woman coaching from the bank. Punting he found wasdifficult, but not impossible, and towards four o'clock he succeededin conveying a second passenger across the sundering flood from theinn to the unknown. 

As he returned, slowly indeed, but now one might almost say surely, tothe peg to which the punt was moored, he became aware of a singularlydelightful human being awaiting him on the bank. She stood with herlegs very wide apart, her hands behind her back, and her head a littleon one side, watching his gestures with an expression of disdainfulinterest. She had black hair and brown legs and a buff short frock andvery intelligent eyes. And when he had reached a sufficient proximityshe remarked: "Hello!"

"Hello, " said Mr. Polly, and saved himself in the nick of time fromdisaster. 

"Silly, " said the young lady, and Mr. Polly lunged nearer. 

"What are you called?"

"Polly. "

"Liar!"

"Why?"

"I'm Polly. "

"Then I'm Alfred. But I meant to be Polly. "

"I was first. "

"All right. I'm going to be the ferryman. "

"I see. You'll have to punt better. "

"You should have seen me early in the afternoon. "

"I can imagine it.... I've seen the others. "

"What others?" Mr. Polly had landed now and was fastening up the punt. 

"Whaim has scooted. "

"Scooted?"

"He conies and scoots them. He'll scoot you too, I expect. "

A mysterious shadow seemed to fall athwart the sunshine andpleasantness of the Potwell Inn. 

"I'm not a scooter, " said Mr. Polly. 

"Uncle Jim is. "

She whistled a little flatly for a moment, and threw small stones at aclump of meadow-sweet that sprang from the bank. Then she remarked:

"When Uncle Jim comes back he'll cut your insides out.... P'raps, verylikely, he'll let me see. "

There was a pause. 

"_Who's_ Uncle Jim?" Mr. Polly asked in a faded voice. 

"Don't you know who Uncle Jim is? He'll show you. He's a scorcher, isUncle Jim. He only came back just a little time ago, and he's scootedthree men. He don't like strangers about, don't Uncle Jim. He _can_swear. He's going to teach me, soon as I can whissle properly. "

"Teach you to swear!" cried Mr. Polly, horrified. 

"_And_ spit, " said the little girl proudly. "He says I'm the gamestlittle beast he ever came across--ever. "

For the first time in his life it seemed to Mr. Polly that he had comeacross something sheerly dreadful. He stared at the pretty thing offlesh and spirit in front of him, lightly balanced on its stout littlelegs and looking at him with eyes that had still to learn theexpression of either disgust or fear. 

"I say, " said Mr. Polly, "how old are you?"

"Nine, " said the little girl. 

She turned away and reflected. Truth compelled her to add one otherstatement. 

"He's not what I should call handsome, not Uncle Jim, " she said. "Buthe's a scorcher and no mistake.... Gramma don't like him. "

V

Mr. Polly found the plump woman in the big bricked kitchen lighting afire for tea. He went to the root of the matter at once. 

"I say, " he asked, "who's Uncle Jim?"

The plump woman blanched and stood still for a moment. A stick fellout of the bundle in her hand unheeded. 

"That little granddaughter of mine been saying things?" she askedfaintly. 

"Bits of things, " said Mr. Polly. 

"Well, I suppose I must tell you sooner or later. He's--. It's Jim. He's the Drorback to this place, that's what he is. The Drorback. Ihoped you mightn't hear so soon.... Very likely he's gone. "

"_She_ don't seem to think so. "

"'E 'asn't been near the place these two weeks and more, " said theplump woman. 

"But who is he?"

"I suppose I got to tell you, " said the plump woman. 

"She says he scoots people, " Mr. Polly remarked after a pause. 

"He's my own sister's son. " The plump woman watched the crackling firefor a space. "I suppose I got to tell you, " she repeated. 

She softened towards tears. "I try not to think of it, and night andday he's haunting me. I try not to think of it. I've been foreasy-going all my life. But I'm that worried and afraid, with deathand ruin threatened and evil all about me! I don't know what to do! Myown sister's son, and me a widow woman and 'elpless against hisdoin's!"

She put down the sticks she held upon the fender, and felt for herhandkerchief. She began to sob and talk quickly. 

"I wouldn't mind nothing else half so much if he'd leave that childalone. But he goes talking to her--if I leave her a moment he'stalking to her, teaching her words and giving her ideas!"

"That's a Bit Thick, " said Mr. Polly. 

"Thick!" cried the plump woman; "it's 'orrible! And what am I to do?He's been here three times now, six days and a week and a part of aweek, and I pray to God night and day he may never come again. Praying! Back he's come sure as fate. He takes my money and he takesmy things. He won't let no man stay here to protect me or do the boatsor work the ferry. The ferry's getting a scandal. They stand and shoutand scream and use language.... If I complain they'll say I'm helplessto manage here, they'll take away my license, out I shall go--and it'sall the living I can get--and he knows it, and he plays on it, and hedon't care. And here I am. I'd send the child away, but I got nowhereto send the child. I buys him off when it comes to that, and back hecomes, worse than ever, prowling round and doing evil. And not a soulto help me. Not a soul! I just hoped there might be a day or so. Before he comes back again. I was just hoping--I'm the sort thathopes. "

Mr. Polly was reflecting on the flaws and drawbacks that seem to beinseparable from all the more agreeable things in life. 

"Biggish sort of man, I expect?" asked Mr. Polly, trying to get thesituation in all its bearings. 

But the plump woman did not heed him. She was going on with herfire-making, and retailing in disconnected fragments the fearfulnessof Uncle Jim. 

"There was always something a bit wrong with him, " she said, "butnothing you mightn't have hoped for, not till they took him andcarried him off and reformed him.... 

"He was cruel to the hens and chickings, it's true, and stuck a knifeinto another boy, but then I've seen him that nice to a cat, nobodycould have been kinder. I'm sure he didn't do no 'arm to that catwhatever anyone tries to make out of it. I'd never listen to that.... It was that reformatory ruined him. They put him along of a lot ofLondon boys full of ideas of wickedness, and because he didn't mindpain--and he don't, I will admit, try as I would--they made him thinkhimself a hero. Them boys laughed at the teachers they set over them, laughed and mocked at them--and I don't suppose they was the bestteachers in the world; I don't suppose, and I don't suppose anyonesensible does suppose that everyone who goes to be a teacher or achapl'in or a warder in a Reformatory Home goes and changes right awayinto an Angel of Grace from Heaven--and Oh, Lord! where was I?"

"What did they send him to the Reformatory for?"

"Playing truant and stealing. He stole right enough--stole the moneyfrom an old woman, and what was I to do when it came to the trial butsay what I knew. And him like a viper a-looking at me--more like aviper than a human boy. He leans on the bar and looks at me. 'Allright, Aunt Flo, ' he says, just that and nothing more. Time aftertime, I've dreamt of it, and now he's come. 'They've Reformed me, ' hesays, 'and made me a devil, and devil I mean to be to you. So out withit, ' he says. "

"What did you give him last time?" asked Mr. Polly. 

"Three golden pounds, " said the plump woman. 

"'That won't last very long, ' he says. 'But there ain't no hurry. I'llbe back in a week about. ' If I wasn't one of the hoping sort--"

She left the sentence unfinished. 

Mr. Polly reflected. "What sort of a size is he?" he asked. "I'm notone of your Herculaceous sort, if you mean that. Nothing verywonderful bicepitally. "

"You'll scoot, " said the plump woman with conviction rather thanbitterness. "You'd better scoot now, and I'll try and find some moneyfor him to go away again when he comes. It ain't reasonable to expectyou to do anything but scoot. But I suppose it's the way of a woman introuble to try and get help from a man, and hope and hope. I'm thehoping sort. "

"How long's he been about?" asked Mr. Polly, ignoring his own outlook. 

"Three months it is come the seventh since he come in by that veryback door--and I hadn't set eyes on him for seven long years. He stoodin the door watchin' me, and suddenly he let off a yelp--like a dog, and there he was grinning at the fright he'd given me. 'Good old AuntyFlo, ' he says, 'ain't you dee-lighted to see me?' he says, 'now I'mReformed. '"

The plump lady went to the sink and filled the kettle. 

"I never did like 'im, " she said, standing at the sink. "And seeinghim there, with his teeth all black and broken--. P'raps I didn't givehim much of a welcome at first. Not what would have been kind to him. 'Lord!' I said, 'it's Jim. '"

"'It's Jim, ' he said. 'Like a bad shillin'--like a damned badshilling. Jim and trouble. You all of you wanted me Reformed and nowyou got me Reformed. I'm a Reformatory Reformed Character, warrantedall right and turned out as such. Ain't you going to ask me in, Auntydear?'

"'Come in, ' I said, 'I won't have it said I wasn't ready to be kind toyou!'

"He comes in and shuts the door. Down he sits in that chair. 'I cometo torment you!' he says, 'you Old Sumpthing!' and begins at me.... Nohuman being could ever have been called such things before. It made mecry out. 'And now, ' he says, 'just to show I ain't afraid of 'urtingyou, ' he says, and ups and twists my wrist. "

Mr. Polly gasped. 

"I could stand even his vi'lence, " said the plump woman, "if it wasn'tfor the child. "

Mr. Polly went to the kitchen window and surveyed his namesake, whowas away up the garden path with her hands behind her back, and whispsof black hair in disorder about her little face, thinking, thinkingprofoundly, about ducklings. 

"You two oughtn't to be left, " he said. 

The plump woman stared at his back with hard hope in her eyes. 

"I don't see that it's _my_ affair, " said Mr. Polly. 

The plump woman resumed her business with the kettle. 

"I'd like to have a look at him before I go, " said Mr. Polly, thinkingaloud. And added, "somehow. Not my business, of course. "

"Lord!" he cried with a start at a noise in the bar, "who's that?"

"Only a customer, " said the plump woman. 

VI

Mr. Polly made no rash promises, and thought a great deal. 

"It seems a good sort of Crib, " he said, and added, "for a chap who'slooking for trouble. "

But he stayed on and did various things out of the list I have alreadygiven, and worked the ferry, and it was four days before he saw anythingof Uncle Jim. And so _resistent_ is the human mind to things not yetexperienced that he could easily have believed in that time that therewas no such person in the world as Uncle Jim. The plump woman, afterher one outbreak of confidence, ignored the subject, and little Pollyseemed to have exhausted her impressions in her first communication, and engaged her mind now with a simple directness in the study andsubjugation of the new human being Heaven had sent into her world. Thefirst unfavourable impression of his punting was soon effaced; he couldnickname ducklings very amusingly, create boats out of wooden splinters, and stalk and fly from imaginary tigers in the orchard with a convincingearnestness that was surely beyond the power of any other human being. She conceded at last that he should be called Mr. Polly, in honour ofher, Miss Polly, even as he desired. 

Uncle Jim turned up in the twilight. 

Uncle Jim appeared with none of the disruptive violence Mr. Polly haddreaded. He came quite softly. Mr. Polly was going down the lanebehind the church that led to the Potwell Inn after posting a letterto the lime-juice people at the post-office. He was walking slowly, after his habit, and thinking discursively. With a sudden tighteningof the muscles he became aware of a figure walking noiselessly besidehim. His first impression was of a face singularly broad above andwith a wide empty grin as its chief feature below, of a slouching bodyand dragging feet. 

"Arf a mo', " said the figure, as if in response to his start, andspeaking in a hoarse whisper. "Arf a mo', mister. You the noo bloke atthe Potwell Inn?"

Mr. Polly felt evasive. "'Spose I am, " he replied hoarsely, andquickened his pace. 

"Arf a mo', " said Uncle Jim, taking his arm. "We ain't doing a(sanguinary) Marathon. It ain't a (decorated) cinder track. I want aword with you, mister. See?"

Mr. Polly wriggled his arm free and stopped. "What is it?" he asked, and faced the terror. 

"I jest want a (decorated) word wiv you. See?--just a friendly word ortwo. Just to clear up any blooming errors. That's all I want. No needto be so (richly decorated) proud, if you _are_ the noo bloke atPotwell Inn. Not a bit of it. See?"

Uncle Jim was certainly not a handsome person. He was short, shorterthan Mr. Polly, with long arms and lean big hands, a thin and wiryneck stuck out of his grey flannel shirt and supported a big head thathad something of the snake in the convergent lines of its broad knottybrow, meanly proportioned face and pointed chin. His almost toothlessmouth seemed a cavern in the twilight. Some accident had left him withone small and active and one large and expressionless reddish eye, andwisps of straight hair strayed from under the blue cricket cap he worepulled down obliquely over the latter. He spat between his teeth andwiped his mouth untidily with the soft side of his fist. 

"You got to blurry well shift, " he said. "See?"

"Shift!" said Mr. Polly. "How?"

"'Cos the Potwell Inn's _my_ beat. See?"

Mr. Polly had never felt less witty. "How's it your beat?" he asked. 

Uncle Jim thrust his face forward and shook his open hand, bent like aclaw, under Mr. Polly's nose. "Not your blooming business, " he said. "You got to shift. "

"S'pose I don't, " said Mr. Polly. 

"You got to shift. "

The tone of Uncle Jim's voice became urgent and confidential. 

"You don't know who you're up against, " he said. "It's a kindness I'mdoing to warn you. See? I'm just one of those blokes who don't stickat things, see? I don't stick at nuffin'. "

Mr. Polly's manner became detached and confidential--as though thematter and the speaker interested him greatly, but didn't concern himover-much. "What do you think you'll do?" he asked. 

"If you don't clear out?"

"Yes. "

"_Gaw!_" said Uncle Jim. "You'd better. '_Ere!_"

He gripped Mr. Polly's wrist with a grip of steel, and in an instantMr. Polly understood the relative quality of their muscles. Hebreathed, an uninspiring breath, into Mr. Polly's face. 

"What _won't_ I do?" he said. "Once I start in on you. "

He paused, and the night about them seemed to be listening. "I'll makea mess of you, " he said in his hoarse whisper. "I'll do you--injuries. I'll 'urt you. I'll kick you ugly, see? I'll 'urt you in 'orribleways--'orrible, ugly ways.... "

He scrutinised Mr. Polly's face. 

"You'll cry, " he said, "to see yourself. See? Cry you will. "

"You got no right, " began Mr. Polly. 

"Right!" His note was fierce. "Ain't the old woman me aunt?"

He spoke still closer. "I'll make a gory mess of you. I'll cut bitsorf you--"

He receded a little. "I got no quarrel with _you_, " he said. 

"It's too late to go to-night, " said Mr. Polly. 

"I'll be round to-morrer--'bout eleven. See? And if I finds you--"

He produced a blood-curdling oath. 

"H'm, " said Mr. Polly, trying to keep things light. "We'll consideryour suggestions. "

"You better, " said Uncle Jim, and suddenly, noiselessly, was going. 

His whispering voice sank until Mr. Polly could hear only the dimfragments of sentences. "Orrible things to you--'orrible things.... Kick yer ugly.... Cut yer--liver out... Spread it all about, Iwill.... Outing doos. See? I don't care a dead rat one way or theuvver. "

And with a curious twisting gesture of the arm Uncle Jim receded untilhis face was a still, dim thing that watched, and the black shadows ofthe hedge seemed to have swallowed up his body altogether. 

VII

Next morning about half-past ten Mr. Polly found himself seated undera clump of fir trees by the roadside and about three miles and a halffrom the Potwell Inn. He was by no means sure whether he was taking awalk to clear his mind or leaving that threat-marred Paradise for goodand all. His reason pointed a lean, unhesitating finger along thelatter course. 

For after all, the thing was not _his_ quarrel. 

That agreeable plump woman, agreeable, motherly, comfortable as shemight be, wasn't his affair; that child with the mop of black hair whocombined so magically the charm of mouse and butterfly and flittingbird, who was daintier than a flower and softer than a peach, was noconcern of his. Good heavens! what were they to him? Nothing!... 

Uncle Jim, of course, _had_ a claim, a sort of claim. 

If it came to duty and chucking up this attractive, indolent, observant, humorous, tramping life, there were those who had a rightto him, a legitimate right, a prior claim on his protection andchivalry. 

Why not listen to the call of duty and go back to Miriam now?... 

He had had a very agreeable holiday.... 

And while Mr. Polly sat thinking these things as well as he could, heknew that if only he dared to look up the heavens had opened and theclear judgment on his case was written across the sky. 

He knew--he knew now as much as a man can know of life. He knew he hadto fight or perish. 

Life had never been so clear to him before. It had always been aconfused, entertaining spectacle, he had responded to this impulse andthat, seeking agreeable and entertaining things, evading difficult andpainful things. Such is the way of those who grow up to a life thathas neither danger nor honour in its texture. He had been muddled andwrapped about and entangled like a creature born in the jungle who hasnever seen sea or sky. Now he had come out of it suddenly into a greatexposed place. It was as if God and Heaven waited over him and all theearth was expectation. 

"Not my business, " said Mr. Polly, speaking aloud. "Where the devil do_I_ come in?"

And again, with something between a whine and a snarl in his voice, "not my blasted business!"

His mind seemed to have divided itself into several compartments, eachwith its own particular discussion busily in progress, and quiteregardless of the others. One was busy with the detailedinterpretation of the phrase "Kick you ugly. " There's a sort of Frenchwrestling in which you use and guard against feet. Watch the man'seye, and as his foot comes up, grip and over he goes--at your mercy ifyou use the advantage right. But how do you use the advantage rightly?

When he thought of Uncle Jim the inside feeling of his body faded awayrapidly to a blank discomfort.... 

"Old cadger! She hadn't no business to drag me into her quarrels. Ought to go to the police and ask for help! Dragging me into a quarrelthat don't concern me. "

"Wish I'd never set eyes on the rotten inn!"

The reality of the case arched over him like the vault of the sky, asplain as the sweet blue heavens above and the wide spread of hill andvalley about him. Man comes into life to seek and find his sufficientbeauty, to serve it, to win and increase it, to fight for it, to faceanything and dare anything for it, counting death as nothing so longas the dying eyes still turn to it. And fear, and dulness andindolence and appetite, which indeed are no more than fear's threecrippled brothers who make ambushes and creep by night, are againsthim, to delay him, to hold him off, to hamper and beguile and kill himin that quest. He had but to lift his eyes to see all that, as much apart of his world as the driving clouds and the bending grass, but hekept himself downcast, a grumbling, inglorious, dirty, fattish littletramp, full of dreads and quivering excuses. 

"Why the hell was I ever born?" he said, with the truth almost winninghim. 

What do you do when a dirty man who smells, gets you down and under inthe dirt and dust with a knee below your diaphragm and a large hairyhand squeezing your windpipe tighter and tighter in a quarrel thatisn't, properly speaking, yours?

"If I had a chance against him--" protested Mr. Polly. 

"It's no Good, you see, " said Mr. Polly. 

He stood up as though his decision was made, and was for an instantstruck still by doubt. 

There lay the road before him going this way to the east and that tothe west. 

Westward, one hour away now, was the Potwell Inn. Already things mightbe happening there.... 

Eastward was the wise man's course, a road dipping between hedges to ahop garden and a wood and presently no doubt reaching an inn, apicturesque church, perhaps, a village and fresh company. The wiseman's course. Mr. Polly saw himself going along it, and tried to seehimself going along it with all the self-applause a wise man feels. But somehow it wouldn't come like that. The wise man fell short ofhappiness for all his wisdom. The wise man had a paunch and roundshoulders and red ears and excuses. It was a pleasant road, and whythe wise man should not go along it merry and singing, full of summerhappiness, was a miracle to Mr. Polly's mind, but confound it! thefact remained, the figure went slinking--slinking was the only wordfor it--and would not go otherwise than slinking. He turned his eyeswestward as if for an explanation, and if the figure was no longerignoble, the prospect was appalling. 

"One kick in the stummick would settle a chap like me, " said Mr. Polly. 

"Oh, God!" cried Mr. Polly, and lifted his eyes to heaven, and saidfor the last time in that struggle, "It isn't my affair!"

And so saying he turned his face towards the Potwell Inn. 

He went back neither halting nor hastening in his pace after this lastdecision, but with a mind feverishly busy. 

"If I get killed, I get killed, and if he gets killed I get hung. Don't seem just somehow. 

"Don't suppose I shall _frighten_ him off. "

VIII

The private war between Mr. Polly and Uncle Jim for the possession ofthe Potwell Inn fell naturally into three chief campaigns. There wasfirst of all the great campaign which ended in the triumphant evictionof Uncle Jim from the inn premises, there came next after a briefinterval the futile invasions of the premises by Uncle Jim thatculminated in the Battle of the Dead Eel, and after some months ofinvoluntary truce there was the last supreme conflict of the NightSurprise. Each of these campaigns merits a section to itself. 

Mr. Polly re-entered the inn discreetly. He found the plump womanseated in her bar, her eyes a-stare, her face white and wet withtears. "O God!" she was saying over and over again. "O God!" The airwas full of a spirituous reek, and on the sanded boards in front ofthe bar were the fragments of a broken bottle and an overturned glass. 

She turned her despair at the sound of his entry, and despair gaveplace to astonishment. 

"You come back!" she said. 

"Ra-ther, " said Mr. Polly. 

"He's--he's mad drunk and looking for her. "

"Where is she?"

"Locked upstairs. "

"Haven't you sent to the police?"

"No one to send. "

"I'll see to it, " said Mr. Polly. "Out this way?"

She nodded. 

He went to the crinkly paned window and peered out. Uncle Jim wascoming down the garden path towards the house, his hands in hispockets and singing hoarsely. Mr. Polly remembered afterwards withpride and amazement that he felt neither faint nor rigid. He glancedround him, seized a bottle of beer by the neck as an improvised club, and went out by the garden door. Uncle Jim stopped amazed. His braindid not instantly rise to the new posture of things. "You!" he cried, and stopped for a moment. "You--_scoot!_"

"_Your_ job, " said Mr. Polly, and advanced some paces. 

Uncle Jim stood swaying with wrathful astonishment and then dartedforward with clutching hands. Mr. Polly felt that if his antagonistclosed he was lost, and smote with all his force at the ugly headbefore him. Smash went the bottle, and Uncle Jim staggered, half-stunned by the blow and blinded with beer. 

The lapses and leaps of the human mind are for ever mysterious. Mr. Polly had never expected that bottle to break. In the instant he feltdisarmed and helpless. Before him was Uncle Jim, infuriated andevidently still coming on, and for defence was nothing but the neck ofa bottle. 

For a time our Mr. Polly has figured heroic. Now comes the fall again;he sounded abject terror; he dropped that ineffectual scrap of glassand turned and fled round the corner of the house. 

"Bolls!" came the thick voice of the enemy behind him as one whoaccepts a challenge, and bleeding, but indomitable, Uncle Jim enteredthe house. 

"Bolls!" he said, surveying the bar. "Fightin' with bolls! I'll show'im fightin' with bolls!"

Uncle Jim had learnt all about fighting with bottles in theReformatory Home. Regardless of his terror-stricken aunt he rangedamong the bottled beer and succeeded after one or two failures inpreparing two bottles to his satisfaction by knocking off the bottoms, and gripping them dagger-wise by the necks. So prepared, he went forthagain to destroy Mr. Polly. 

Mr. Polly, freed from the sense of urgent pursuit, had halted beyondthe raspberry canes and rallied his courage. The sense of Uncle Jimvictorious in the house restored his manhood. He went round by theouthouses to the riverside, seeking a weapon, and found an old paddleboat hook. With this he smote Uncle Jim as he emerged by the door ofthe tap. Uncle Jim, blaspheming dreadfully and with dire stabbingintimations in either hand, came through the splintering paddle like acircus rider through a paper hoop, and once more Mr. Polly dropped hisweapon and fled. 

A careless observer watching him sprint round and round the inn infront of the lumbering and reproachful pursuit of Uncle Jim might haveformed an altogether erroneous estimate of the issue of the campaign. Certain compensating qualities of the very greatest military valuewere appearing in Mr. Polly even as he ran; if Uncle Jim had strengthand brute courage and the rich toughening experience a ReformatoryHome affords, Mr. Polly was nevertheless sober, more mobile and with amind now stimulated to an almost incredible nimbleness. So that he notonly gained on Uncle Jim, but thought what use he might make of thisadvantage. The word "strategious" flamed red across the tumult of hismind. As he came round the house for the third time, he dartedsuddenly into the yard, swung the door to behind himself and boltedit, seized the zinc pig's pail that stood by the entrance to thekitchen and had it neatly and resonantly over Uncle Jim's head as hecame belatedly in round the outhouse on the other side. One of thesplintered bottles jabbed Mr. Polly's ear--at the time it seemed of noimportance--and then Uncle Jim was down and writhing dangerously andnoisily upon the yard tiles, with his head still in the pig pail andhis bottles gone to splinters, and Mr. Polly was fastening the kitchendoor against him. 

"Can't go on like this for ever, " said Mr. Polly, whooping for breath, and selecting a weapon from among the brooms that stood behind thekitchen door. 

Uncle Jim was losing his head. He was up and kicking the door andbellowing unamiable proposals and invitations, so that a strategistemerging silently by the tap door could locate him without difficulty, steal upon him unawares and--!

But before that felling blow could be delivered Uncle Jim's ear hadcaught a footfall, and he turned. Mr. Polly quailed and lowered hisbroom, --a fatal hesitation. 

"_Now_ I got you!" cried Uncle Jim, dancing forward in a disconcertingzigzag. 

He rushed to close, and Mr. Polly stopped him neatly, as it were amiracle, with the head of the broom across his chest. Uncle Jim seizedthe broom with both hands. "Lea-go!" he said, and tugged. Mr. Pollyshook his head, tugged, and showed pale, compressed lips. Both tugged. Then Uncle Jim tried to get round the end of the broom; Mr. Pollycircled away. They began to circle about one another, both tugginghard, both intensely watchful of the slightest initiative on the partof the other. Mr. Polly wished brooms were longer, twelve or thirteenfeet, for example; Uncle Jim was clearly for shortness in brooms. Hewasted breath in saying what was to happen shortly, sanguinary, oriental soul-blenching things, when the broom no longer separatedthem. Mr. Polly thought he had never seen an uglier person. SuddenlyUncle Jim flashed into violent activity, but alcohol slows movement, and Mr. Polly was equal to him. Then Uncle Jim tried jerks, and for aterrible instant seemed to have the broom out of Mr. Polly's hands. But Mr. Polly recovered it with the clutch of a drowning man. ThenUncle Jim drove suddenly at Mr. Polly's midriff, but again Mr. Pollywas ready and swept him round in a circle. Then suddenly a wild hopefilled Mr. Polly. He saw the river was very near, the post to whichthe punt was tied not three yards away. With a wild yell, he sent thebroom home into his antagonist's ribs. 

"Woosh!" he cried, as the resistance gave. 

"Oh! _Gaw_!" said Uncle Jim, going backward helplessly, and Mr. Pollythrust hard and abandoned the broom to the enemy's despairing clutch. 

Splash! Uncle Jim was in the water and Mr. Polly had leapt like a cataboard the ferry punt and grasped the pole. 

Up came Uncle Jim spluttering and dripping. "You (unprofitable matter, and printing it would lead to a censorship of novels)! You know I gota weak _chess_!"

The pole took him in the throat and drove him backward and downwards. 

"Lea go!" cried Uncle Jim, staggering and with real terror in his onceawful eyes. 

Splash! Down he fell backwards into a frothing mass of water with Mr. Polly jabbing at him. Under water he turned round and came up again asif in flight towards the middle of the river. Directly his headreappeared Mr. Polly had him between the shoulders and under again, bubbling thickly. A hand clutched and disappeared. 

It was stupendous! Mr. Polly had discovered the heel of Achilles. Uncle Jim had no stomach for cold water. The broom floated away, pitching gently on the swell. Mr. Polly, infuriated with victory, thrust Uncle Jim under again, and drove the punt round on its chain insuch a manner that when Uncle Jim came up for the fourth time--and nowhe was nearly out of his depth, too buoyed up to walk and apparentlynearly helpless, --Mr. Polly, fortunately for them both, could notreach him. Uncle Jim made the clumsy gestures of those who struggleinsecurely in the water. "Keep out, " said Mr. Polly. Uncle Jim with agreat effort got a footing, emerged until his arm-pits were out ofwater, until his waistcoat buttons showed, one by one, till scarcelytwo remained, and made for the camp sheeting. 

"Keep out!" cried Mr. Polly, and leapt off the punt and followed themovements of his victim along the shore. 

"I tell you I got a weak chess, " said Uncle Jim, moistly. "This ain'tfair fightin'. "

"Keep out!" said Mr. Polly. 

"This ain't fair fightin', " said Uncle Jim, almost weeping, and allhis terrors had gone. 

"Keep out!" said Mr. Polly, with an accurately poised pole. 

"I tell you I got to land, you Fool, " said Uncle Jim, with a sort ofdespairing wrathfulness, and began moving down-stream. 

"You keep out, " said Mr. Polly in parallel movement. "Don't you everland on this place again!... "

Slowly, argumentatively, and reluctantly, Uncle Jim waded down-stream. He tried threats, he tried persuasion, he even tried a belated note ofpathos; Mr. Polly remained inexorable, if in secret a little perplexedas to the outcome of the situation. "This cold's getting to my_marrer_!" said Uncle Jim. 

"You want cooling. You keep out in it, " said Mr. Polly. 

They came round the bend into sight of Nicholson's ait, where thebackwater runs down to the Potwell Mill. And there, after much parleyand several feints, Uncle Jim made a desperate effort and struggledinto clutch of the overhanging _osiers_ on the island, and so got outof the water with the millstream between them. He emerged dripping andmuddy and vindictive. "By _Gaw_!" he said. "I'll skin you for this!"

"You keep off or I'll do worse to you, " said Mr. Polly. 

The spirit was out of Uncle Jim for the time, and he turned away tostruggle through the _osiers_ towards the mill, leaving a shiningtrail of water among the green-grey stems. 

Mr. Polly returned slowly and thoughtfully to the inn, and suddenlyhis mind began to bubble with phrases. The plump woman stood at thetop of the steps that led up to the inn door to greet him. 

"Law!" she cried as he drew near, "'asn't 'e killed you?"

"Do I look like it?" said Mr. Polly. 

"But where's Jim?"

"Gone off. "

"'E was mad drunk and dangerous!"

"I put him in the river, " said Mr. Polly. "That toned down hisalcolaceous frenzy! I gave him a bit of a doing altogether. "

"Hain't he 'urt you?"

"Not a bit of it!"

"Then what's all that blood beside your ear?"

Mr. Polly felt. "Quite a cut! Funny how one overlooks things! Heatedmoments! He must have done that when he jabbed about with thosebottles. Hullo, Kiddy! You venturing downstairs again?"

"Ain't he killed you?" asked the little girl. 

"Well!"

"I wish I'd seen more of the fighting. "

"Didn't you?"

"All I saw was you running round the house and Uncle Jim after you. "

There was a little pause. "I was leading him on, " said Mr. Polly. 

"Someone's shouting at the ferry, " she said. 

"Right O. But you won't see any more of Uncle Jim for a bit. We'vebeen having a _conversazione_ about that. "

"I believe it _is_ Uncle Jim, " said the little girl. 

"Then he can wait, " said Mr. Polly shortly. 

He turned round and listened for the words that drifted across fromthe little figure on the opposite bank. So far as he could judge, Uncle Jim was making an appointment for the morrow. He replied with adefiant movement of the punt pole. The little figure was convulsed fora moment and then went on its way upstream--fiercely. 

So it was the first campaign ended in an insecure victory. 

IX

The next day was Wednesday and a slack day for the Potwell Inn. It wasa hot, close day, full of the murmuring of bees. One or two peoplecrossed by the ferry, an elaborately equipped fisherman stopped forcold meat and dry ginger ale in the bar parlour, some haymakers cameand drank beer for an hour, and afterwards sent jars and jugs by a boyto be replenished; that was all. Mr. Polly had risen early and wasbusy about the place meditating upon the probable tactics of UncleJim. He was no longer strung up to the desperate pitch of the firstencounter. But he was grave and anxious. Uncle Jim had shrunken, asall antagonists that are boldly faced shrink, after the first battle, to the negotiable, the vulnerable. Formidable he was no doubt, but notinvincible. He had, under Providence, been defeated once, and he mightbe defeated altogether. 

Mr. Polly went about the place considering the militant possibilitiesof pacific things, _pokers_, copper sticks, garden implements, kitchenknives, garden nets, barbed wire, oars, clothes lines, blankets, pewter pots, stockings and broken bottles. He prepared a club with astocking and a bottle inside upon the best East End model. He swung itround his head once, broke an outhouse window with a flying fragmentof glass, and ruined the stocking beyond all darning. He developed asubtle scheme with the cellar flap as a sort of pitfall, but herejected it finally because (A) it might entrap the plump woman, and(B) he had no use whatever for Uncle Jim in the cellar. He determinedto wire the garden that evening, burglar fashion, against thepossibilities of a night attack. 

Towards two o'clock in the afternoon three young men arrived in acapacious boat from the direction of Lammam, and asked permission tocamp in the paddock. It was given all the more readily by Mr. Pollybecause he perceived in their proximity a possible check upon theself-expression of Uncle Jim. But he did not foresee and no one couldhave foreseen that Uncle Jim, stealing unawares upon the Potwell Innin the late afternoon, armed with a large rough-hewn stake, shouldhave mistaken the bending form of one of those campers--who waspulling a few onions by permission in the garden--for Mr. Polly's, andcrept upon it swiftly and silently and smitten its wide invitationunforgettably and unforgiveably. It was an error impossible toexplain; the resounding whack went up to heaven, the cry of amazement, and Mr. Polly emerged from the inn armed with the frying-pan he wascleaning, to take this reckless assailant in the rear. Uncle Jim, realising his error, fled blaspheming into the arms of the other twocampers, who were returning from the village with butcher's meat andgroceries. They caught him, they smacked his face with steak andpunched him with a bursting parcel of lump sugar, they held him thoughhe bit them, and their idea of punishment was to duck him. They werehilarious, strong young stockbrokers' clerks, _Territorials_ andseasoned boating men; they ducked him as though it was romping, and allthat Mr. Polly had to do was to pick up lumps of sugar for them and wipethem on his sleeve and put them on a plate, and explain that Uncle Jimwas a notorious bad character and not quite right in his head. 

"Got a regular obsession that the Missis is his Aunt, " said Mr. Polly, expanding it. "Perfect noosance he is. "

But he caught a glance of Uncle Jim's eye as he receded before thecampers' urgency that boded ill for him, and in the night he had adisagreeable idea that perhaps his luck might not hold for the thirdoccasion. 

That came soon enough. So soon, indeed, as the campers had gone. 

Thursday was the early closing day at Lammam, and next to Sunday thebusiest part of the week at the Potwell Inn. Sometimes as many as sixboats all at once would be moored against the ferry punt and hiringrowboats. People could either have a complete tea, a complete tea withjam, cake and eggs, a kettle of boiling water and find the rest, orrefreshments _á la carte_, as they chose. They sat about, but usuallythe boiling water-_ers_ had a delicacy about using the tables andgrouped themselves humbly on the ground. The _complete_ tea-_ers_ withjam and eggs got the best tablecloth on the table nearest the stepsthat led up to the glass-panelled door. The groups about the lawn werevery satisfying to Mr. Polly's sense of amenity. To the right were the_complete_ tea-_ers_ with everything heart could desire, then a smallgroup of three young men in remarkable green and violet and pale-blueshirts, and two girls in mauve and yellow blouses with common teas andgooseberry jam at the green clothless table, then on the grass down bythe pollard willow a small family of hot water-_ers_ with a hamper, alittle troubled by wasps in their jam from the nest in the tree andall in mourning, but happy otherwise, and on the lawn to the right aginger beer lot of 'prentices without their collars and very jocularand happy. The young people in the rainbow shirts and blouses formedthe centre of interest; they were under the leadership of agold-spectacled senior with a fluting voice and an air of mystery; heordered everything, and showed a peculiar knowledge of the qualitiesof the Potwell jams, preferring gooseberry with much insistence. Mr. Polly watched him, christened him the "benifluous influence, " glancedat the 'prentices and went inside and down into the cellar in order toreplenish the stock of stone ginger beer which the plump woman hadallowed to run low during the preoccupations of the campaign. It wasin the cellar that he first became aware of the return of Uncle Jim. He became aware of him as a voice, a voice not only hoarse, but thick, as voices thicken under the influence of alcohol. 

"Where's that muddy-faced mongrel?" cried Uncle Jim. "Let 'im come outto me! Where's that blighted whisp with the punt pole--I got a word tosay to 'im. Come out of it, you pot-bellied chunk of dirtiness, you!Come out and '_ave_ your ugly face wiped. I got a Thing for you.... '_Ear_ me?

"'E's 'iding, that's what 'e's doing, " said the voice of Uncle Jim, dropping for a moment to sorrow, and then with a great increment ofwrathfulness: "Come out of my nest, you blinking cuckoo, you, or I'llcut your silly insides out! Come out of it--you pock-marked rat!Stealing another man's 'ome away from 'im! Come out and look me in theface, you squinting son of a Skunk!... "

Mr. Polly took the ginger beer and went thoughtfully upstairs to thebar. 

"'E's back, " said the plump woman as he appeared. "I knew 'e'd comeback. "

"I heard him, " said Mr. Polly, and looked about. "Just gimme the oldpoker handle that's under the beer engine. "

The door opened softly and Mr. Polly turned quickly. But it was onlythe pointed nose and intelligent face of the young man with the giltspectacles and discreet manner. He coughed and the spectacles fixedMr. Polly. 

"I say, " he said with quiet earnestness. "There's a chap out hereseems to want someone. "

"Why don't he come in?" said Mr. Polly. 

"He seems to want you out there. "

"What's he want?"

"I _think_, " said the spectacled young man after a thoughtful moment, "he appears to have brought you a present of fish. "

"Isn't he shouting?"

"He _is_ a little boisterous. "

"He'd better come in. "

The manner of the spectacled young man intensified. "I wish you'd comeout and persuade him to go away, " he said. "His language--isn't quitethe thing--ladies. "

"It never was, " said the plump woman, her voice charged with sorrow. 

Mr. Polly moved towards the door and stood with his hand on thehandle. The gold-spectacled face disappeared. 

"Now, my man, " came his voice from outside, "be careful what you'resaying--"

"Oo in all the World and Hereafter are you to call me, me man?" criedUncle Jim in the voice of one astonished and pained beyond endurance, and added scornfully: "You gold-eyed Geezer, you!"

"Tut, tut!" said the gentleman in gilt glasses. "Restrain yourself!"

Mr. Polly emerged, poker in hand, just in time to see what followed. Uncle Jim in his shirtsleeves and a state of ferocious decolletage, was holding something--yes!--a dead eel by means of a piece ofnewspaper about its tail, holding it down and back and a littlesideways in such a way as to smite with it upward and hard. It struckthe spectacled gentleman under the jaw with a peculiar dead thud, anda cry of horror came from the two seated parties at the sight. One ofthe girls shrieked piercingly, "Horace!" and everyone sprang up. Thesense of helping numbers came to Mr. Polly's aid. 

"Drop it!" he cried, and came down the steps waving his poker andthrusting the spectacled gentleman before him as once heroes were wontto wield the ox-hide shield. 

Uncle Jim gave ground suddenly, and trod upon the foot of a young manin a blue shirt, who immediately thrust at him violently with bothhands. 

"Lea go!" howled Uncle Jim. "That's the chap I'm looking for!" andpressing the head of the spectacled gentleman aside, smote hard at Mr. Polly. 

But at the sight of this indignity inflicted upon the spectacledgentleman a woman's heart was stirred, and a pink parasol drove hardand true at Uncle Jim's wiry neck, and at the same moment the youngman in the blue shirt sought to collar him and lost his grip again. 

"Suffragettes, " gasped Uncle Jim with the ferule at his throat. "Everywhere!" and aimed a second more successful blow at Mr. Polly. 

"Wup!" said Mr. Polly. 

But now the jam and egg party was joining in the fray. A stout yetstill fairly able-bodied gentleman in white and black checks enquired:"What's the fellow up to? Ain't there no police here?" and it wasevident that once more public opinion was rallying to the support ofMr. Polly. 

"Oh, come on then all the LOT of you!" cried Uncle Jim, and backingdexterously whirled the eel round in a destructive circle. The pinksunshade was torn from the hand that gripped it and whirled athwartthe complete, but unadorned, tea things on the green table. 

"Collar him! Someone get hold of his collar!" cried thegold-spectacled gentleman, coming out of the scrimmage, retreating upthe steps to the inn door as if to rally his forces. 

"Stand clear, you blessed mantel ornaments!" cried Uncle Jim, "standclear!" and retired backing, staving off attack by means of thewhirling eel. 

Mr. Polly, undeterred by a sense of grave damage done to his nose, pressed the attack in front, the two young men in violet and blueskirmished on Uncle Jim's flanks, the man in white and black checkssought still further outflanking possibilities, and two of theapprentice boys ran for oars. The gold-spectacled gentleman, as ifinspired, came down the wooden steps again, seized the tablecloth ofthe jam and egg party, lugged it from under the crockery withinadequate precautions against breakage, and advanced with compressedlips, curious lateral crouching movements, swift flashings of hisglasses, and a general suggestion of bull-fighting in his pose andgestures. Uncle Jim was kept busy, and unable to plan his retreat withany strategic soundness. He was moreover manifestly a little nervousabout the river in his rear. He gave ground in a curve, and so cameright across the rapidly abandoned camp of the family in mourning, crunching a teacup under his heel, oversetting the teapot, and finallytripping backwards over the hamper. The eel flew out at a tangent fromhis hand and became a mere looping relic on the sward. 

"Hold him!" cried the gentleman in spectacles. "Collar him!" andmoving forward with extraordinary promptitude wrapped the besttablecloth about Uncle Jim's arms and head. Mr. Polly grasped hispurpose instantly, the man in checks was scarcely slower, and inanother moment Uncle Jim was no more than a bundle of smotheredblasphemy and a pair of wildly active legs. 

"Duck him!" panted Mr. Polly, holding on to the earthquake. "Bes'thing--duck him. "

The bundle was convulsed by paroxysms of anger and protest. One bootgot the hamper and sent it ten yards. 

"Go in the house for a clothes line someone!" said the gentleman ingold spectacles. "He'll get out of this in a moment. "

One of the apprentices ran. 

"Bird nets in the garden, " shouted Mr. Polly. "In the garden!"

The apprentice was divided in his purpose. And then suddenly Uncle Jimcollapsed and became a limp, dead seeming thing under their hands. Hisarms were drawn inward, his legs bent up under his person, and so helay. 

"Fainted!" said the man in checks, relaxing his grip. 

"A fit, perhaps, " said the man in spectacles. 

"Keep hold!" said Mr. Polly, too late. 

For suddenly Uncle Jim's arms and legs flew out like springs released. Mr. Polly was tumbled backwards and fell over the broken teapot andinto the arms of the father in mourning. Something struck hishead--dazzingly. In another second Uncle Jim was on his feet and thetablecloth enshrouded the head of the man in checks. Uncle Jimmanifestly considered he had done all that honour required of him, andagainst overwhelming numbers and the possibility of reiteratedduckings, flight is no disgrace. 

Uncle Jim fled. 

Mr. Polly sat up after an interval of an indeterminate length amongthe ruins of an idyllic afternoon. Quite a lot of things seemedscattered and broken, but it was difficult to grasp it all at once. Hestared between the legs of people. He became aware of a voice, speaking slowly and complainingly. 

"Someone ought to pay for those tea things, " said the father inmourning. "We didn't bring them 'ere to be danced on, not by no mannerof means. "

X

There followed an anxious peace for three days, and then a rough manin a blue jersey, in the intervals of trying to choke himself withbread and cheese and pickled onions, broke out abruptly intoinformation. 

"Jim's lagged again, Missus, " he said. 

"What!" said the landlady. "Our Jim?"

"Your Jim, " said the man, and after an absolutely necessary pause forswallowing, added: "Stealin' a 'atchet. "

He did not speak for some moments, and then he replied to Mr. Polly'senquiries: "Yes, a 'atchet. Down Lammam way--night before last. "

"What'd 'e steal a 'atchet for?" asked the plump woman. 

"'E said 'e wanted a 'atchet. "

"I wonder what he wanted a hatchet for?" said Mr. Polly, thoughtfully. 

"I dessay 'e 'ad a use for it, " said the gentleman in the blue jersey, and he took a mouthful that amounted to conversational suicide. Therewas a prolonged pause in the little bar, and Mr. Polly did some rapidthinking. 

He went to the window and whistled. "I shall stick it, " he whisperedat last. "'Atchets or no 'atchets. "

He turned to the man with the blue jersey when he thought him clearfor speech again. "How much did you say they'd given him?" he asked. 

"Three munce, " said the man in the blue jersey, and refilledanxiously, as if alarmed at the momentary clearness of his voice. 

XI

Those three months passed all too quickly; months of sunshine andwarmth, of varied novel exertion in the open air, of congenialexperiences, of interest and wholesome food and successful digestion, months that browned Mr. Polly and hardened him and saw the beginningsof his beard, months marred only by one anxiety, an anxiety Mr. Pollydid his utmost to suppress. The day of reckoning was never mentioned, it is true, by either the plump woman or himself, but the name ofUncle Jim was written in letters of glaring silence across theirintercourse. As the term of that respite drew to an end his anxietyincreased, until at last it even trenched upon his well-earned sleep. He had some idea of buying a revolver. At last he compromised upon asmall and very foul and dirty rook rifle which he purchased in Lammamunder a pretext of bird scaring, and loaded carefully and concealedunder his bed from the plump woman's eye. 

September passed away, October came. 

And at last came that night in October whose happenings it is sodifficult for a sympathetic historian to drag out of their propernocturnal indistinctness into the clear, hard light of positivestatement. A novelist should present characters, not vivisect thempublicly.... 

The best, the kindliest, if not the justest course is surely to leaveuntold such things as Mr. Polly would manifestly have preferreduntold. 

Mr. Polly had declared that when the cyclist discovered him he wasseeking a weapon that should make a conclusive end to Uncle Jim. Thatdeclaration is placed before the reader without comment. 

The gun was certainly in possession of Uncle Jim at that time and nohuman being but Mr. Polly knows how he got hold of it. 

The cyclist was a literary man named Warspite, who suffered frominsomnia; he had risen and come out of his house near Lammam justbefore the dawn, and he discovered Mr. Polly partially concealed inthe ditch by the Potwell churchyard wall. It is an ordinary dry ditch, full of nettles and overgrown with elder and dogrose, and in no waysuggestive of an arsenal. It is the last place in which you would lookfor a gun. And he says that when he dismounted to see why Mr. Pollywas allowing only the latter part of his person to show (and that itwould seem by inadvertency), Mr. Polly merely raised his head andadvised him to "Look out!" and added: "He's let fly at me twicealready. " He came out under persuasion and with gestures of extremecaution. He was wearing a white cotton nightgown of the type that hasnow been so extensively superseded by pyjama sleeping suits, and hislegs and feet were bare and much scratched and torn and very muddy. 

Mr. Warspite takes that exceptionally lively interest in hisfellow-creatures which constitutes so much of the distinctive andcomplex charm of your novelist all the world over, and he at onceinvolved himself generously in the case. The two men returned at Mr. Polly's initiative across the churchyard to the Potwell Inn, and cameupon the burst and damaged rook rifle near the new monument to SirSamuel _Harpon_ at the corner by the yew. 

"That must have been his third go, " said Mr. Polly. "It sounded a bitfunny. "

The sight inspirited him greatly, and he explained further that he hadfled to the churchyard on account of the cover afforded by tombstonesfrom the flight of small shot. He expressed anxiety for the fate ofthe landlady of the Potwell Inn and her grandchild, and led the waywith enhanced alacrity along the lane to that establishment. 

They found the doors of the house standing open, the bar in somedisorder--several bottles of whisky were afterwards found to bemissing--and Blake, the village policeman, rapping patiently at theopen door. He entered with them. The glass in the bar had sufferedseverely, and one of the mirrors was starred from a blow from a pewterpot. The till had been forced and ransacked, and so had the bureau inthe minute room behind the bar. An upper window was opened and thevoice of the landlady became audible making enquiries. They went outand parleyed with her. She had locked herself upstairs with the littlegirl, she said, and refused to descend until she was assured thatneither Uncle Jim nor Mr. Polly's gun were anywhere on the premises. Mr. Blake and Mr. Warspite proceeded to satisfy themselves with regardto the former condition, and Mr. Polly went to his room in search ofgarments more suited to the brightening dawn. He returned immediatelywith a request that Mr. Blake and Mr. Warspite would "just come andlook. " They found the apartment in a state of extraordinary confusion, the bedclothes in a ball in the corner, the drawers all open andransacked, the chair broken, the lock of the door forced and broken, one door panel slightly scorched and perforated by shot, and thewindow wide open. None of Mr. Polly's clothes were to be seen, butsome garments which had apparently once formed part of a stoker'sworkaday outfit, two brownish yellow halves of a shirt, and an unsoundpair of boots were scattered on the floor. A faint smell of gunpowderstill hung in the air, and two or three books Mr. Polly had recentlyacquired had been shied with some violence under the bed. Mr. Warspitelooked at Mr. Blake, and then both men looked at Mr. Polly. "That's_his_ boots, " said Mr. Polly. 

Blake turned his eye to the window. "Some of these tiles '_ave_ justgot broken, " he observed. 

"I got out of the window and slid down the scullery tiles, " Mr. Pollyanswered, omitting much, they both felt, from his explanation.... 

"Well, we better find 'im and '_ave_ a word with 'im, " said Blake. "That's about my business now. "

XII

But Uncle Jim had gone altogether.... 

He did not return for some days. That perhaps was not very wonderful. But the days lengthened to weeks and the weeks to months and stillUncle Jim did not recur. A year passed, and the anxiety of him becameless acute; a second healing year followed the first. One afternoonabout thirty months after the Night Surprise the plump woman spoke ofhim. 

"I wonder what's become of Jim, " she said. 

"_I_ wonder sometimes, " said Mr. Polly. 

Chapter the Tenth

Miriam Revisited

I

One summer afternoon about five years after his first coming to thePotwell Inn Mr. Polly found himself sitting under the pollard willowfishing for dace. It was a plumper, browner and healthier Mr. Pollyaltogether than the miserable bankrupt with whose dyspeptic portraitour novel opened. He was fat, but with a fatness more generallydiffused, and the lower part of his face was touched to gravity by asmall square beard. Also he was balder. 

It was the first time he had found leisure to fish, though from thevery outset of his Potwell career he had promised himself abundantindulgence in the pleasures of fishing. Fishing, as the golden page ofEnglish literature testifies, is a meditative and retrospectivepursuit, and the varied page of memory, disregarded so long for sakeof the teeming duties I have already enumerated, began to unfolditself to Mr. Polly's consideration. A speculation about Uncle Jimdied for want of material, and gave place to a reckoning of the yearsand months that had passed since his coming to Potwell, and that to aphilosophical review of his life. He began to think about Miriam, remotely and impersonally. He remembered many things that had beenneglected by his conscience during the busier times, as, for example, that he had committed arson and deserted a wife. For the first time helooked these long neglected facts in the face. 

It is disagreeable to think one has committed Arson, because it is anaction that leads to jail. Otherwise I do not think there was a grainof regret for that in Mr. Polly's composition. But deserting Miriamwas in a different category. Deserting Miriam was mean. 

This is a history and not a glorification of Mr. Polly, and I tell ofthings as they were with him. Apart from the disagreeable twingearising from the thought of what might happen if he was found out, hehad not the slightest remorse about that fire. Arson, after all, is anartificial crime. Some crimes are crimes in themselves, would becrimes without any law, the cruelties, mockery, the breaches of faiththat astonish and wound, but the burning of things is in itselfneither good nor bad. A large number of houses deserve to be burnt, most modern furniture, an overwhelming majority of pictures andbooks--one might go on for some time with the list. If our communitywas collectively anything more than a feeble idiot, it would burn mostof London and Chicago, for example, and build sane and beautifulcities in the place of these pestilential heaps of rotten privateproperty. I have failed in presenting Mr. Polly altogether if I havenot made you see that he was in many respects an artless child ofNature, far more untrained, undisciplined and spontaneous than anordinary savage. And he was really glad, for all that little drawbackof fear, that he had the courage to set fire to his house and fly andcome to the Potwell Inn. 

But he was not glad he had left Miriam. He had seen Miriam cry once ortwice in his life, and it had always reduced him to abjectcommiseration. He now imagined her crying. He perceived in a perplexedway that he had made himself responsible for her life. He forgot howshe had spoilt his own. He had hitherto rested in the faith that shehad over a hundred pounds of insurance money, but now, with his eyemeditatively upon his float, he realised a hundred pounds does notlast for ever. His conviction of her incompetence was unflinching; shewas bound to have fooled it away somehow by this time. And then!

He saw her humping her shoulders and sniffing in a manner he hadalways regarded as detestable at close quarters, but which now becameharrowingly pitiful. 

"Damn!" said Mr. Polly, and down went his float and he flicked up avictim to destruction and took it off the hook. 

He compared his own comfort and health with Miriam's imagineddistress. 

"Ought to have done something for herself, " said Mr. Polly, rebaitinghis hook. "She was always talking of doing things. Why couldn't she?"

He watched the float oscillating gently towards quiescence. 

"Silly to begin thinking about her, " he said. "Damn silly!"

But once he had begun thinking about her he had to go on. 

"Oh blow!" cried Mr. Polly presently, and pulled up his hook to findanother fish had just snatched at it in the last instant. His handlingmust have made the poor thing feel itself unwelcome. 

He gathered his things together and turned towards the house. 

All the Potwell Inn betrayed his influence now, for here indeed he hadfound his place in the world. It looked brighter, so bright indeed asto be almost skittish, with the white and green paint he had lavishedupon it. Even the garden palings were striped white and green, and sowere the boats, for Mr. Polly was one of those who find a positivesensuous pleasure in the laying on of paint. Left and right were twolarge boards which had done much to enhance the inn's popularity withthe lighter-minded variety of pleasure-seekers. Both markedinnovations. One bore in large letters the single word "Museum, " theother was as plain and laconic with "Omlets!" The spelling of thelatter word was Mr. Polly's own, but when he had seen a whole boatloadof men, intent on Lammam for lunch, stop open-mouthed, and stare andgrin and come in and ask in a marked sarcastic manner for "omlets, " heperceived that his inaccuracy had done more for the place than hisutmost cunning could have contrived. In a year or so the inn was knownboth up and down the river by its new name of "Omlets, " and Mr. Polly, after some secret irritation, smiled and was content. And the fatwoman's _omelettes_ were things to remember. 

(You will note I have changed her epithet. Time works upon us all. )

She stood upon the steps as he came towards the house, and smiled athim richly. 

"Caught many?" she asked. 

"Got an idea, " said Mr. Polly. "Would it put you out very much if Iwent off for a day or two for a bit of a holiday? There won't be muchdoing now until Thursday. "

II

Feeling recklessly secure behind his beard Mr. Polly surveyed theFishbourne High Street once again. The north side was much as he hadknown it except that Rusper had vanished. A row of new shops replacedthe destruction of the great fire. Mantell and Throbson's had risenagain upon a more flamboyant pattern, and the new fire station was inthe Swiss-Teutonic style and with much red paint. Next door in theplace of Rumbold's was a branch of the Colonial Tea Company, and thena Salmon and Gluckstein Tobacco Shop, and then a little shop thatdisplayed sweets and professed a "Tea Room Upstairs. " He consideredthis as a possible place in which to prosecute enquiries about hislost wife, wavering a little between it and the God's Providence Inndown the street. Then his eye caught a name over the window, "Polly, "he read, "& Larkins! Well, I'm--astonished!"

A momentary faintness came upon him. He walked past and down thestreet, returned and surveyed the shop again. 

He saw a middle-aged, rather untidy woman standing behind the counter, who for an instant he thought might be Miriam terribly changed, andthen recognised as his sister-in-law Annie, filled out and no longerhilarious. She stared at him without a sign of recognition as heentered the shop. 

"Can I have tea?" said Mr. Polly. 

"Well, " said Annie, "you _can_. But our Tea Room's upstairs.... Mysister's been cleaning it out--and it's a bit upset. "

"It _would_ be, " said Mr. Polly softly. 

"I beg your pardon?" said Annie. 

"I said _I_ didn't mind. Up here?"

"I daresay there'll be a table, " said Annie, and followed him up to aroom whose conscientious disorder was intensely reminiscent of Miriam. 

"Nothing like turning everything upside down when you're cleaning, "said Mr. Polly cheerfully. 

"It's my sister's way, " said Annie impartially. "She's gone out for abit of air, but I daresay she'll be back soon to finish. It's a nicelight room when it's tidy. Can I put you a table over there?"

"Let _me_, " said Mr. Polly, and assisted. He sat down by the openwindow and drummed on the table and meditated on his next step whileAnnie vanished to get his tea. After all, things didn't seem so badwith Miriam. He tried over several gambits in imagination. 

"Unusual name, " he said as Annie laid a cloth before him. Annie lookedinterrogation. 

"Polly. Polly & Larkins. Real, I suppose?"

"Polly's my sister's name. She married a Mr. Polly. "

"Widow I presume?" said Mr. Polly. 

"Yes. This five years--come October. "

"Lord!" said Mr. Polly in unfeigned surprise. 

"Found drowned he was. There was a lot of talk in the place. "

"Never heard of it, " said Mr. Polly. "I'm a stranger--rather. "

"In the Medway near Maidstone. He must have been in the water fordays. Wouldn't have known him, my sister wouldn't, if it hadn't beenfor the name sewn in his clothes. All whitey and eat away he was. "

"Bless my heart! Must have been rather a shock for her!"

"It _was_ a shock, " said Annie, and added darkly: "But sometimes ashock's better than a long agony. "

"No doubt, " said Mr. Polly. 

He gazed with a rapt expression at the preparations before him. "SoI'm drowned, " something was saying inside him. "Life insured?" heasked. 

"We started the tea rooms with it, " said Annie. 

Why, if things were like this, had remorse and anxiety for Miriam beenimplanted in his soul? No shadow of an answer appeared. 

"Marriage is a lottery, " said Mr. Polly. 

"_She_ found it so, " said Annie. "Would you like some jam?"

"I'd like an egg, " said Mr. Polly. "I'll have two. I've got a sort offeeling--. As though I wanted keeping up.... Wasn't particularly goodsort, this Mr. Polly?"

"He was a _wearing_ husband, " said Annie. "I've often pitied mysister. He was one of that sort--"

"Dissolute?" suggested Mr. Polly faintly. 

"No, " said Annie judiciously; "not exactly dissolute. Feeble's morethe word. Weak, 'E was. Weak as water. 'Ow long do you like your eggsboiled?"

"Four minutes exactly, " said Mr. Polly. 

"One gets talking, " said Annie. 

"One does, " said Mr. -Polly, and she left him to his thoughts. 

What perplexed him was his recent remorse and tenderness for Miriam. Now he was back in her atmosphere all that had vanished, and the oldfeeling of helpless antagonism returned. He surveyed the piledfurniture, the economically managed carpet, the unpleasing pictures onthe wall. Why had he felt remorse? Why had he entertained thisillusion of a helpless woman crying aloud in the pitiless darkness forhim? He peered into the unfathomable mysteries of the heart, andducked back to a smaller issue. _Was_ he feeble?

The eggs came up. Nothing in Annie's manner invited a resumption ofthe discussion. 

"Business brisk?" he ventured to ask. 

Annie reflected. "It is, " she said, "and it isn't. It's like that. "

"Ah!" said Mr. Polly, and squared himself to his egg. "Was there aninquest on that chap?"

"What chap?"

"What was his name?--Polly!"

"Of course. "

"You're sure it was him?"

"What you mean?"

Annie looked at him hard, and suddenly his soul was black with terror. 

"Who else could it have been--in the very cloes 'e wore?"

"Of course, " said Mr. Polly, and began his egg. He was so agitatedthat he only realised its condition when he was half way through itand Annie safely downstairs. 

"Lord!" he said, reaching out hastily for the pepper. "One ofMiriam's! Management! I haven't tasted such an egg for five years.... Wonder where she gets them! Picks them out, I suppose!"

He abandoned it for its fellow. 

Except for a slight mustiness the second egg was very palatableindeed. He was getting on to the bottom of it as Miriam came in. Helooked up. "Nice afternoon, " he said at her stare, and perceived sheknew him at once by the gesture and the voice. She went white and shutthe door behind her. She looked as though she was going to faint. Mr. Polly sprang up quickly and handed her a chair. "My God!" shewhispered, and crumpled up rather than sat down. 

"It's _you_" she said. 

"No, " said Mr. Polly very earnestly. "It isn't. It just looks like me. That's all. "

"I _knew_ that man wasn't you--all along. I tried to think it was. Itried to think perhaps the water had altered your wrists and feet andthe colour of your hair. "

"Ah!"

"I'd always feared you'd come back. "

Mr. Polly sat down by his egg. "I haven't come back, " he said veryearnestly. "Don't you think it. "

"'Ow we'll pay back the insurance now I _don't_ know. " She wasweeping. She produced a handkerchief and covered her face. 

"Look here, Miriam, " said Mr. Polly. "I haven't come back and I'm notcoming back. I'm--I'm a Visitant from Another World. You shut up aboutme and I'll shut up about myself. I came back because I thought youmight be hard up or in trouble or some silly thing like that. Now Isee you again--I'm satisfied. I'm satisfied completely. See? I'm goingto absquatulate, see? Hey Presto right away. "

He turned to his tea for a moment, finished his cup noisily, stood up. 

"Don't you think you're going to see me again, " he said, "for youain't. "

He moved to the door. 

"That _was_ a tasty egg, " he said, hovered for a second and vanished. 

Annie was in the shop. 

"The missus has had a bit of a shock, " he remarked. "Got some sort offancy about a ghost. Can't make it out quite. So Long!"

And he had gone. 

III

Mr. Polly sat beside the fat woman at one of the little green tablesat the back of the Potwell Inn, and struggled with the mystery oflife. It was one of those evenings, serenely luminous, amply andatmospherically still, when the river bend was at its best. A swanfloated against the dark green masses of the further bank, the streamflowed broad and shining to its destiny, with scarce a ripple--exceptwhere the reeds came out from the headland--the three poplars roseclear and harmonious against a sky of green and yellow. And it was asif it was all securely within a great warm friendly globe of crystalsky. It was as safe and enclosed and fearless as a child that hasstill to be born. It was an evening full of the quality of tranquil, unqualified assurance. Mr. Polly's mind was filled with the persuasionthat indeed all things whatsoever must needs be satisfying andcomplete. It was incredible that life has ever done more than seemedto jar, that there could be any shadow in life save such velvetsoftnesses as made the setting for that silent swan, or any murmur butthe ripple of the water as it swirled round the chained and gentlyswaying punt. And the mind of Mr. Polly, exalted and made tender bythis atmosphere, sought gently, but sought, to draw together thevaried memories that came drifting, half submerged, across the circleof his mind. 

He spoke in words that seemed like a bent and broken stick thrustsuddenly into water, destroying the mirror of the shapes they sought. "Jim's not coming back again ever, " he said. "He got drowned fiveyears ago. "

"Where?" asked the fat woman, surprised. 

"Miles from here. In the Medway. Away in Kent. "

"Lor!" said the fat woman. 

"It's right enough, " said Mr. Polly. 

"How d'you know?"

"I went to my home. "

"Where?"

"Don't matter. I went and found out. He'd been in the water some days. He'd got my clothes and they'd said it was me. "

"_They_?"

"It don't matter. I'm not going back to them. "

The fat woman regarded him silently for some time. Her expression ofscrutiny gave way to a quiet satisfaction. Then her brown eyes went tothe river. 

"Poor Jim, " she said. "'E 'adn't much Tact--ever. "

She added mildly: "I can't 'ardly say I'm sorry. "

"Nor me, " said Mr. Polly, and got a step nearer the thought in him. "But it don't seem much good his having been alive, does it?"

"'E wasn't much good, " the fat woman admitted. "Ever. "

"I suppose there were things that were good to him, " Mr. Pollyspeculated. "They weren't _our_ things. "

His hold slipped again. "I often wonder about life, " he said weakly. 

He tried again. "One seems to start in life, " he said, "expectingsomething. And it doesn't happen. And it doesn't matter. One startswith ideas that things are good and things are bad--and it hasn't muchrelation to what _is_ good and what is bad. I've always been theskeptaceous sort, and it's always seemed rot to me to pretend we knowgood from evil. It's just what I've _never_ done. No Adam's applestuck in _my_ throat, ma'am. I don't own to it. "

He reflected. 

"I set fire to a house--once. "

The fat woman started. 

"I don't feel sorry for it. I don't believe it was a bad thing todo--any more than burning a toy like I did once when I was a baby. Inearly killed myself with a razor. Who hasn't?--anyhow gone as far asthinking of it? Most of my time I've been half dreaming. I marriedlike a dream almost. I've never really planned my life or set out tolive. I happened; things happened to me. It's so with everyone. Jimcouldn't help himself. I shot at him and tried to kill him. I droppedthe gun and he got it. He very nearly had me. I wasn't a second toosoon--ducking.... Awkward--that night was.... M'mm.... But I don'tblame him--come to that. Only I don't see what it's all up to.... 

"Like children playing about in a nursery. Hurt themselves attimes.... 

"There's something that doesn't mind us, " he resumed presently. "Itisn't what we try to get that we get, it isn't the good we think we dois good. What makes us happy isn't our trying, what makes others happyisn't our trying. There's a sort of character people like and stand upfor and a sort they won't. You got to work it out and take theconsequences.... Miriam was always trying. "

"Who was Miriam?" asked the fat woman. 

"No one you know. But she used to go about with her brows knit tryingnot to do whatever she wanted to do--if ever she did want to doanything--"

He lost himself. 

"You can't help being fat, " said the fat woman after a pause, tryingto get up to his thoughts. 

"_You_ can't, " said Mr. Polly. 

"It helps and it hinders. "

"Like my upside down way of talking. "

"The magistrates wouldn't '_ave_ kept on the license to me if I 'adn'tbeen fat.... "

"Then what have we done, " said Mr. Polly, "to get an evening likethis? Lord! look at it!" He sent his arm round the great curve of thesky. 

"If I was a nigger or an Italian I should come out here and sing. Iwhistle sometimes, but bless you, it's singing I've got in my mind. Sometimes I think I live for sunsets. "

"I don't see that it does you any good always looking at sunsets likeyou do, " said the fat woman. 

"Nor me. But I do. Sunsets and things I was made to like. "

"They don't 'elp you, " said the fat woman thoughtfully. 

"Who cares?" said Mr. Polly. 

A deeper strain had come to the fat woman. "You got to die some day, "she said. 

"Some things I can't believe, " said Mr. Polly suddenly, "and one isyour being a skeleton.... " He pointed his hand towards the neighbour'shedge. "Look at 'em--against the yellow--and they're just stingin'nettles. Nasty weeds--if you count things by their uses. And no helpin the life hereafter. But just look at the look of them!"

"It isn't only looks, " said the fat woman. 

"Whenever there's signs of a good sunset and I'm not too busy, " saidMr. Polly, "I'll come and sit out here. "

The fat woman looked at him with eyes in which contentment struggledwith some obscure reluctant protest, and at last turned them slowly tothe black nettle pagodas against the golden sky. 

"I wish we could, " she said. 

"I will. "

The fat woman's voice sank nearly to the inaudible. 

"Not always, " she said. 

Mr. Polly was some time before he replied. "Come here always when I'ma ghost, " he replied. 

"Spoil the place for others, " said the fat woman, abandoning her moralsolicitudes for a more congenial point of view. 

"Not my sort of ghost wouldn't, " said Mr. Polly, emerging from anotherlong pause. "I'd be a sort of diaphalous feeling--just mellowish andwarmish like.... "

They said no more, but sat on in the warm twilight until at last theycould scarcely distinguish each other's faces. They were not so muchthinking as lost in a smooth, still quiet of the mind. A bat flittedby. 

"Time we was going in, O' Party, " said Mr. Polly, standing up. "Supperto get. It's as you say, we can't sit here for ever. "

The End