Pollyooly. Edgar Jepson
the Honorable John Ruffin and other creditors.
Mr. Montague Fitzgerald flung across the threshold and slammed the inner door violently behind him. It can not have seemed to him that he had signalized his departure with sufficient emphasis, for on the instant he slammed to the oak as well.
Pollyooly smoothed the joyous smile from her face, carried the bacon into the sitting-room, and set it on the table.
The Honorable John Ruffin was reading the Morning Post with an entirely unruffled serenity. He rose briskly and said, "Ah, ha! Breakfast. I fear the vulgar taste for altercation is growing on me, Pollyooly. It improves my appetite."
"Yes, sir," said Pollyooly.
He began his breakfast, and she went round the room tidying it up. She had done that already that morning; but in the few minutes which the Honorable John Ruffin had spent in it, he had unconsciously, but thoroughly, effaced the traces of her earlier work. On one chair lay the jacket of his pajamas, on the other his bath-towel, on another his sponge. He had apparently had some difficulty in making up his mind what clothes he would wear that day, for three pairs of trousers, a coat, and two waistcoats had been thrown on the sofa; and the drawer in which he kept his ties stood on the floor by the window in a good light.
Now and again Pollyooly glanced at him with approval. He was not a handsome man. No fabricator of waxworks would ever offer him a salary to sit as a model for busts of the Apollos which adorn the windows of the hairdressers. But he had an uncommon air of breeding and distinction. His well-shaped, firm lips, square chin, and steadfast gray eyes showed him a young man of a resolute spirit; and about the corners of those firm lips and steadfast, but kindly, eyes lurked a spirit of humor, mocking and elusive. What though his nose was too large for his somewhat lean face? The ancients have for ever decided that it is better to have a nose too large than too small.
For his part, as he ate his bacon with slow approval, he watched Pollyooly with the pleased eye of a lover of beauty; and presently he said, in a tone of gentle apology, "I'm afraid you find me rather trying, Pollyooly. The fact is I was born to enjoy the services of a valet; and every morning the effort of deciding what to wear brings home to me afresh the unkindness of fortune in robbing me of my birthright."
"Yes, sir," said Pollyooly politely. She liked the conversation of the Honorable John Ruffin, though she rarely put the strain of trying to understand it on her tender mind.
"How is your aunt this morning?" he said.
Pollyooly flushed faintly and said quickly, "She's no better, sir, thank you."
"Well, I hope she'll soon be well enough to begin work again."
"Don't I do it right, sir?" said Pollyooly anxiously.
"Quite—quite. You keep the place quite as clean, and you have a way with bacon your aunt could never hope to rival. I can only ascribe it to the possession of genius—genius, Pollyooly; and when Fortune relents, I shall attach you to my person, at a large salary, for the sole purpose of grilling my breakfast bacon for me. I have decided that when I start on my tour round the world I shall take with me a valet, you, and six well-fed pigs, to be killed and cured at such intervals as the occasion demands."
"Thank you, sir," said Pollyooly gravely. "But I couldn't leave the Lump—my brother Roger, sir."
"We will take brother Roger with us. I must have my bacon; and traveling will expand his mind," said the Honorable John Ruffin with a lordly air.
"Thank you, sir," said Pollyooly; and she carried the drawer, the garments, the bath-towel, and the sponge into the bedroom. Then she went to the kitchen, boiled two eggs, and brought them to her employer.
"Perfectly done—an angel of genius," he said, after opening the first of them. "Has it ever occurred to you, Pollyooly, how extraordinarily like an angel you look?"
"Angels don't have red hair, sir," said Pollyooly quickly.
"Yes; your red hair is against the best British traditions, but not against the Italian. I must assure you that in spite of your red hair you are, to the cultivated eye, the authentic angel child," said the Honorable John Ruffin firmly.
"Yes, sir," said Pollyooly doubtfully.
The gray eyes of the Honorable John Ruffin twinkled, and he said, "Surely your neighbors have pointed this out to you?"
For the first time the respectful seriousness of Pollyooly's face was broken by a frown; and her eyes flashed. "The big boys call me 'Ginger,' sir," she said.
"The big boy is an insensate creature," said the Honorable John Ruffin with the sententious assurance of an expert anthropologist. "And what do little boys call you?"
"They don't call me anything. I've taught them not to," said Pollyooly with a sudden, unangelic truculence.
The Honorable John Ruffin chuckled. "I might have known it—red hair will out," he said in the pleased tone of one who chances on yet another proof of a cherished theory.
"Yes, sir," said Pollyooly.
Reluctantly she left him to finish his breakfast and betook herself to the set of chambers on the other side of the landing to prepare the breakfast of Mr. Gedge-Tomkins. Mr. Gedge-Tomkins felt no need of converse with his fellow-creatures at breakfast time; and if he had, it could not have been gratified by, converse with a little girl. He was a strong, silent man, with a soul above girls, little or big. All his powerful mind was seriously bent on a brilliant career at the Bar and in politics; and he refrained sternly from frittering away his intelligence on lighter things. It is an odd, but pregnant, fact that though his face was longer and broader than the face of the Honorable John Ruffin, neither his nose nor his eyes were as big as those of the younger and less earnest man.
Pollyooly rarely had a word from him beyond his instructions about procuring the food he desired for his breakfast next morning, though she often heard him snort like a war-horse as he browsed sternly on his morning paper. It is to be feared that she did not lavish on his bacon the thoughtful care she lavished on that of the Honorable John Ruffin; but the appeal of the really sterling qualities of God's Englishman to a child of twelve is seldom strong.
Till noon she was busy with the rest of the work of the two sets of chambers, washing up the crockery, dusting the bedrooms, and making the beds. Then, having finished her work, she shut the two oaks with a deep sigh of relief that she had earned her wages for yet another day before her employers learned of her aunt's death.
As she came down the stairs, Mrs. Meeken, the extremely decayed lady who acted as laundress to the tenants of the two sets of chambers on the floor below, contrived to be on the landing to greet her.
"And how's your poor aunt to-day?" she said with a carneying smile.
"She's not any better, thank you," said Pollyooly quickly.
"Ah, at 'er hage, poor dear, we knows what hillness his. I shouldn't wonder as she hisn't long for this world," said Mrs. Meeken, with an air she believed to be pious, but which was merely cunning.
"Oh, she's not any worse," said Pollyooly coldly; and she went on briskly down the stairs.
But Mrs. Meeken's inquiry had banished her peace of mind; and she walked down the King's Bench Walk on lagging feet, her brow puckered by an anxious frown.
None the less, in spite of her carking care, as she turned into Alsatia she assumed a truculent air, which sat but curiously on her slender form, and swaggered up to the door of the house in which she lived. As she came to it, a careless, but active little boy of her own size came running out of it. With the spring of a panther Pollyooly was upon him, her fingers clenched in his abundant hair.
"I'll teach you to call me 'Ginger,' Henry Wiggins," she said, and she smacked him with striking vigor.
Henry yelled and scratched and kicked, but not till she had lavished on him his due meed of smacks did Pollyooly loosen her grip. Henry bolted, howling, down the street, and Pollyooly went up the stairs smiling the serene