Page:Jepson--Pollyooly.djvu/102

 startling activity; and some of the crowd came with him. He knocked; and the door was not opened to him. He had a short talk with the red-nosed besieger; then, apprised of the delicacy of the situation, he went away.

The red-nosed man did not. An hour after lunch the Honorable John Ruffin grew tired of his own society, fetched Pollyooly and the Lump from their attic, and told them stories. He drew a keen pleasure from changing the grave and serious expression, which for the most part rested on Pollyooly's angel face, to a natural, careless, childlike gleefulness.

At six o'clock the red-nosed watcher on the threshold could no longer withstand the demands of his so long unslaked gullet, unslaked, that is, by anything more alluring that the water that flowed from the tap on the ground floor. With that thin beverage he had washed down the lunch of bread and cheese he had brought so snug and warm in the tail pocket of his morning coat. He heard the summoning, clear call of the beer; and he went.

The Honorable John Ruffin escaped swiftly but discreetly. Pollyooly scouted ahead of him, as far