Page:The history of Mr. Polly.djvu/306

 Mr. Blake, and then both men looked at Mr. Polly. “That’s his boots,” said Mr. Polly.

Blake turned his eye to the window. “Some of these tiles ’ave just got broken,” he observed.

“I got out of the window and slid down the scullery tiles,” Mr. Polly answered, omitting much, they both felt, from his explanation

“Well, we better find ’im and ’ave a word with ’im,” said Blake. “That’s about my business now.”

But Uncle Jim had gone altogether....

He did not return for some days. That perhaps was not very wonderful. But the days lengthened to weeks and the weeks to months and still Uncle Jim did not recur. A year passed, and the anxiety of him became less acute; a second healing year followed the first. One afternoon about thirty months after the Night Surprise the plump woman spoke of him.

“I wonder what’s become of Jim,” she said.

“I wonder sometimes,” said Mr. Polly.