Page:The history of Mr. Polly.djvu/272

 The plump lady went to the sink and filled the kettle.

“I never did like ’im,” she said, standing at the sink. “And seeing him there, with his teeth all black and broken. P’raps I didn’t give him much of a welcome at first. Not what would have been kind to him. ‘Lord!’ I said, ‘it’s Jim.’”

“‘It’s Jim,’ he said. ‘Like a bad shillin’—like a damned bad shilling. Jim and trouble. You all of you wanted me Reformed and now you got me Reformed. I’m a Reformatory Reformed Character, warranted all right and turned out as such. Ain’t you going to ask me in, Aunty dear?’

“‘Come in,’ I said, ’I won’t have it said I wasn’t ready to be kind to you!’

“He comes in and shuts the door. Down he sits in that chair. ’I come to torment you!’ he says, ‘you Old Sumpthing!’ and begins at me No human being could ever have been called such things before. It made me cry out. ‘And now,’ he says, ’just to show I ain’t afraid of ’urting you,’ he says, and ups and twists my wrist.”

Mr. Polly gasped.

“I could stand even his vi’lence,” said the plump woman, “if it wasn’t for the child.”

Mr. Polly went to the kitchen window and surveyed his namesake, who was away up the garden path with her hands behind her back, and whisps of black hair in disorder about her little face, thinking, thinking profoundly, about ducklings.