Page:The history of Mr. Polly.djvu/96

 The narration on the left was flourishing up to a climax. “Ladies,” she sez, “dip their pens in their ink and keep their noses out of it!”

“Elfrid!”—persuasively.

“Certain people may cast snacks at other people’s daughters, never having had any of their own, though two poor souls of wives dead and buried through their goings on”

Johnson ruling the storm: “We don’t want old scores dug up on such a day as this”

“Old scores you may call them, but worth a dozen of them that put them to their rest, poor dears.”

“Elfrid!”—with a note of remonstrance.

“If you choke yourself, my lord, not another mouthful do you ’ave. No nice puddin’! Nothing!”

“And kept us in, she did, every afternoon for a week!”

It seemed to be the end, and Mr. Polly replied with an air of being profoundly impressed: “Really!”

“Elfrid!”—a little disheartened.

“And then they ’ad it! They found he’d swallowed the very key to unlock the drawer”

“Then don’t let people go casting snacks!”

“Who’s casting snacks!”

“Elfrid! This lady wants to know, ’ave the Prossers left Canterbury?”

“No wish to make myself disagreeable, not to God’s ’umblest worm”

“Alf, you aren’t very busy with that brawn up there!”

And so on for the hour.