Page:The history of Mr. Polly.djvu/27

 picnics under dark olive trees in the everlasting sunshine of Italy.

And about that time it was that all Three Ps adopted turn-down collars and large, loose, artistic silk ties, which they tied very much on one side and wore with an air of defiance. And a certain swashbuckling carriage.

And then came the glorious revelation of that great Frenchman whom Mr. Polly called “Rabooloose.” The Three Ps thought the birth feast of Gargantua the most glorious piece of writing in the world, and I am not certain they were wrong, and on wet Sunday evenings where there was danger of hymn singing they would get Parsons to read it aloud.

Towards the several members of the Y. M. C. A. who shared the dormitory, the Three Ps always maintained a sarcastic and defiant attitude.

“We got a perfect right to do what we like in our corner,” Platt maintained. “You do what you like in yours.”

“But the language!” objected Morrison, the white-faced, earnest-eyed improver, who was leading a profoundly religious life under great difficulties.

“Language, man!” roared Parsons, “why, it’s !”

“Sunday isn’t the time for Literature.”

“It’s the only time we’ve got. And besides”

The horrors of religious controversy would begin.

Mr. Polly stuck loyally to the Three Ps, but in the secret places of his heart he was torn. A fire of