Page:Jepson--Pollyooly.djvu/197

 "By all means," said the Honorable John Ruffin. "He will lend a further air of verisimilitude to an absolutely authentic flower-seller. And both of you had better go just as you are—in your old clothes and without hats. You won't catch cold on a sunny morning like this."

Pollyooly looked just a trifle distressed.

"Yes, yes! I know that you feel it beneath your dignity as my housekeeper to go about hatless. But it is beneath your dignity as my housekeeper to sell flowers in the street at all. Let us go the whole hog even though we can not turn him into bacon," said the Honorable John Ruffin quickly.

"Yes, sir," said Pollyooly with an air of resignation.

Captain Croome sat down at the writing-table, and wrote his note to Grizel—laboriously. At intervals his groans of parturition were uncommonly like grunts. Then Pollyooly fetched the Lump and they went down-stairs in a body. They got into Captain Croome's motor-car; and the Honorable John Ruffin wished them good-by and good luck. Captain Croome drove to Covent Garden, and there he bought violets in the bunch, and in a neighboring