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 you might be trained to be a cook of some merit."

"Yes, sir," said Pollyooly.

She was pleased by the compliment, and went on with her work in a complacent frame of mind. But her troubles were by no means over; for his little altercation with Mr. Gedge-Tomkins seemed to have braced all the dogged Englishman in the red-nosed besieger to the highest pitch; and he had apparently made up his mind to stay the day.

At half-past eleven he still leaned against the banisters, and Pollyooly began to grow anxious about the Lump. She was sure that the Honorable John Ruffin would look after him—not that he needed much looking after. But his dinner-hour was approaching; he would not fail to make firmly known that it was his dinner-hour; and her instinct warned her that her kind-hearted employer would give him indigestible things to eat, and then have him ill on his hands all the afternoon. She cudgeled and cudgeled her brains for some method of getting back into her own quarters without letting in the besieger on her heels; but she could find none.