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 Gedge-Tomkins that she might be free to cook his breakfast.

At last the besiegers, or to be exact, the besieger, came at half-past ten in the morning. Pollyooly and the Lump were in Mr. Gedge-Tomkins' chambers, when she heard a knocking at the Honorable John Ruffin's door. She peeped through Mr. Gedge-Tomkins' letter-box, and there, knocking steadily away, stood a respectable, but red-nosed, man in a greenish-black morning coat, a high, but dirty collar, a greenish-black plaster of a tie, and a dingy, flat-topped bowler hat. After the Honorable John Ruffin's admirable description of the species, Pollyooly recognized him at a glance as the common bailiff.

He was plainly unused to working in the Temple, or he would not have gone on rapping so hopefully on the Honorable John Ruffin's oak, for when once the unknockered oak is 'sported' (Anglice, shut) it means that the occupant of the chambers is literally, or figuratively, out. The besieger could not have known this, for he remained a quarter of an hour, rapping patiently, at three minute intervals, on the Honorable John Ruffin's oak.