Page:The history of Mr. Polly.djvu/40

34 —in its blooming Infancy. All balance and stiffness like a blessed Egyptian picture. No Joy in it, no blooming Joy! Conventional. A shop window ought to get hold of people, grip ’em as they go along. It stands to reason. Grip!”

His voice would sink to a kind of quiet bellow. “Do they grip?”

Then after a pause, a savage roar; “Naw!”

“He’s got a Heavy on,” said Mr. Polly. “Go it, O’ Man; let’s have some more of it.”

“Look at old Morrison’s dress-stuff windows! Tidy, tasteful, correct, I grant you, but Bleak!” He let out the word reinforced to a shout; “Bleak!”

“Bleak!” echoed Mr. Polly.

“Just pieces of stuff in rows, rows of tidy little puffs, perhaps one bit just unrolled, quiet tickets.”

“Might as well be in church, O’ Man,” said Mr. Polly.

“A window ought to be exciting,” said Parsons; “it ought to make you say: El-lo! when you see it.”

He paused, and Platt watched him over a snorting pipe.

“Rockcockyo,” said Mr. Polly.

“We want a new school of window dressing,” said Parsons, regardless of the comment. “A New School! The Port Burdock school. Day after tomorrow I change the Fitzallan Street stuff. This time, it’s going to be a change. I mean to have a crowd or bust!”

And as a matter of fact he did both.

His voice dropped to a note of self-reproach. “I’ve