“You mean it’s no good?” said the
man.
“Not the least, not a bit. And never could
be.”
Mr. Gammon nodded several times, as if calculating
the force of the blow, and nerving himself to bear
it.
“Well, if you say it,” he replied at length,
“I suppose it’s a fact—but
I call it hard lines. Ever since I was old enough
to think of marrying I’ve been looking out for
the right girl—always looking out, and
now I thought I’d found her. Hanged if it
isn’t hard lines! I could have married
scores—scores; but do you suppose I’d
have a girl that showed she was only waiting for me
to say the word? Not me! That’s what
took me in Minnie. She’s the first of that
kind I ever knew—the only one. But,
I say, do you mean you won’t let me try?
You surely don’t mean that, Mrs. Clover?”
“Yes, I do. I mean just that, Mr. Gammon.”
“Why? Because I haven’t got a permanency?”
“Oh, no.”
“Because I—because I go to Dulwich?”
“No.”
“Why, then?”
“I can’t tell you why, and I don’t
know why, but I mean it. And what’s more”—her
eyes sparkled—“if ever you say such
word to Minnie you never pass my door again.”
This seemed to take Mr. Gammon’s breath away.
After a rather long silence he looked about for his
hat, then for his dog-whip.
“I’ll say good night, Mrs. Clover.
Hot, isn’t it? Hottest day yet. I
say, you’re not riled with me? That’s
all right. See you again before long.”
He did not make straight for home, but rambled in
a circuit for the next hour. When darkness had
fallen he found himself again near the china shop,
and paused, for a moment only, by the door. On
the opposite side of the street stood a man who had
also paused in a slow walk, and who also looked towards
the shop. But Mr. Gammon went his way without
so much as a glance at that dim figure.
POLLY AND MR. PARISH
Two first-rate quarrels in one day put Polly Sparkes
into high good humour. On leaving her aunt’s
house in the afternoon she strolled into Battersea
Park, and there treated herself to tea and cakes at
a little round table in the open air. Mrs. Clover,
though the quarrel was prolonged until four o’clock,
had offered no refreshments, which seemed to Miss
Sparkes a very gross instance of meanness and inhospitality.
At a table near to her sat two girls, for some reason
taking a holiday, who conversed in a way which proved
them to be “mantle hands,” and Polly listened
and smiled. Did she not well remember the day
when the poverty of home sent her, a little girl, to
be “trotter” in a workroom? But she
soon found her way out of that. A sharp tongue,
a bold eye, and a brilliant complexion helped her on,
step by step, or jump by jump, till she had found much
more agreeable ways of supporting herself. All
unimpeachable, for Polly was fiercely virtuous, and
put a very high value indeed upon such affections
as she had to dispose of.
