As for the muddle about her husband, be hanged to
it! He would think no more about the business.
Ten to one this address that Polly had obtained would
be quite useless. How could he go to strangers
(named Gildersleeve) and coolly inquire of them whether
they knew a man named Clover? Of course they
would have him kicked into the street, and Serve him
right.
Polly and her boy! A young City clerk, eh?
Old enough to wear a chimney-pot, he’d be bound.
Polly was fond of chimney-pots. There, he had
done with her, and with Clover and Quodling and Gildersleeve,
and all the rest of the puzzle.
As he suddenly entered the house Moggie ran to him
up the kitchen stairs.
“There’s been a gentleman for you, Mr.
Gammon.”
“Oh! Who was it?”
“Mr. Greenacres, driving a trap, and the ’orse
wouldn’t stand still, and he said he’d
see you some other time.”
“Greenacre, eh? All right.”
He sat for a quarter of an hour in his bedroom, unable
to decide how he should spend the rest of the day.
After all, perhaps, he ought not to have abandoned
Polly so abruptly. In her own way she had been
doing him a kindness, and as for her temper, well,
she couldn’t help it.
He would go to Dulwich and see the bow-wows.
AN ALLY IN THE QUEST
Commercially he was doing well. Quodling and
Son were more than satisfied with him. Excellent
prospects lay ahead, and this time it would assuredly
be his own fault if he had not secured the permanency
so much desired for him by Mrs. Clover.
By the by, would this make any difference? What
if he let Mrs. Clover know of his greatly improved
position? She might reconsider things. And
yet, as often as he thought of Minnie, he felt that
her mother’s objection corresponded too well
with the disposition of the girl. Minnie was
not for him. Well and good, he would find somebody
else.
Polly Sparkes? Polly be hanged. Why did
her eyes and her teeth and her rosy cheeks keep plaguing
him? He had told himself times innumerable that
he cared not a snap of the fingers for Polly and all
her highly-coloured attractions. If only he had
not been such a fool as to treat her shabbily last
Sunday morning! He felt sorry, and couldn’t
get rid of the vexation.
It worried him this afternoon as he left Quodlings
in Norton Folgate and walked towards the Bank.
He was thinking, too, of a poor fellow with a large
family for whom he had tried these last few days to
find employment, without the usual success. In
Threadneedle Street a hand arrested him.
“Just the man I wanted,” said the voice
of Mr. Greenacre. He was in an elegant overcoat,
with a silk hat of the newest fashion. You remember
your promise?
“What promise?”
“Nonsense! But we can’t talk about
it here. Come to the Bilboes. Don’t
know the Bilboes? What a mood you’re in
to-day.”
