Page:The history of Mr. Polly.djvu/269

 “Thick!” cried the plump woman; “it’s ’orrible! And what am I to do? He’s been here three times now, six days and a week and a part of a week, and I pray to God night and day he may never come again. Praying! Back he’s come sure as fate. He takes my money and he takes my things. He won’t let no man stay here to protect me or do the boats or work the ferry. The ferry’s getting a scandal. They stand and shout and scream and use language If I complain they’ll say I’m helpless to manage here, they’ll take away my license, out I shall go—and it’s all the living I can get—and he knows it, and he plays on it, and he don’t care. And here I am. I’d send the child away, but I got nowhere to send the child. I buys him off when it comes to that, and back he comes, worse than ever, prowling round and doing evil. And not a soul to help me. Not a soul! I just hoped there might be a day or so. Before he comes back again. I was just hoping I’m the sort that hopes.”

Mr. Polly was reflecting on the flaws and drawbacks that seem to be inseparable from all the more agreeable things in life.

“Biggish sort of man, I expect?” asked Mr. Polly, trying to get the situation in all its bearings.

But the plump woman did not heed him. She was going on with her fire-making, and retailing in disconnected fragments the fearfulness of Uncle Jim.

“There was always something a bit wrong with him,” she said, “but nothing you mightn’t have hoped for, not