Page:The history of Mr. Polly.djvu/97

 The general effect upon Mr. Polly at the time was at once confusing and exhilarating; but it led him to eat copiously and carelessly, and long before the end, when after an hour and a quarter a movement took the party, and it pushed away its cheese plates and rose sighing and stretching from the remains of the repast, little streaks and bands of dyspeptic irritation and melancholy were darkening the serenity of his mind.

He stood between the mantel shelf and the window—the blinds were up now—and the Larkins sisters clustered about him. He battled with the oncoming depression and forced himself to be extremely facetious about two noticeable rings on Annie’s hand. “They ain’t real,” said Annie coquettishly. “Got ’em out of a prize packet.”

“Prize packet in trousers, I expect,” said Mr. Polly, and awakened inextinguishable laughter.

“Oh! the things you say!” said Minnie, slapping his shoulder.

Suddenly something he had quite extraordinarily forgotten came into his head.

“Bless my heart!” he cried, suddenly serious.

“What’s the matter?” asked Johnson.

“Ought to have gone back to shop—three days ago. They’ll make no end of a row!”

“Lor, you are a Treat!” said cousin Annie, and screamed with laughter at a delicious idea. “You’ll get the Chuck,” she said.

Mr. Polly made a convulsing grimace at her.