The History of Mr. Polly

but usually the boiling water-ers had a delicacy about using the tables and grouped themselves humbly on the ground. The complete tea-ers with jam and eggs got the best tablecloth on the table nearest the steps that led up to the glass-panelled door. The groups about the lawn were very satisfying to Mr. Polly’s sense of amenity. To the right were the complete tea-ers with everything heart could desire, then a small group of three young men in remarkable green and violet and pale-blue shirts, and two girls in mauve and yellow blouses with common teas and gooseberry jam at the green clothless table, then on the grass down by the pollard willow a small family of hot water-ers with a hamper, a little troubled by wasps in their jam from the nest in the tree and all in mourning, but happy otherwise, and on the lawn to the right a ginger beer lot of ’prentices without their collars and very jocular and happy. The young people in the rainbow shirts and blouses formed the centre of interest; they were under the leadership of a gold-spectacled senior with a fluting voice and an air of mystery; he ordered everything, and showed a peculiar knowledge of the qualities of the Potwell jams, preferring gooseberry with much insistence. Mr. Polly watched him, christened him the “benifluous influence,” glanced at the ’prentices and went inside and down into the cellar in order to replenish the stock of stone ginger beer which the plump woman had allowed to run low during the preoccupations of the campaign. It was in the cellar that he first became aware of the return of Uncle Jim. He became aware of him as a voice, a voice not only hoarse, but thick, as voices thicken under the influence of alcohol.

“Where’s that muddy-faced mongrel?” cried Uncle Jim. “Let ’im come out to me! Where’s that blighted whisp with the punt pole⁠—I got a word to say to ’im. Come out of it, you potbellied chunk of dirtiness, you! Come out and ’ave your ugly face wiped. I got a thing for you.⁠ ⁠… ’Ear me?

“ ’E’s ’iding, that’s what ’e’s doing,” said the voice of Uncle Jim, dropping for a moment to sorrow, and then with a great increment of wrathfulness: “Come out of my nest, you blinking cuckoo, you, or I’ll cut your silly insides out! Come out of it⁠—you pockmarked rat! Stealing another man’s ’ome away from ’im! Come out and look me in the face, you squinting son of a skunk!⁠ ⁠…”

Mr. Polly took the ginger beer and went thoughtfully upstairs to the bar.

“ ’E’s back,” said the plump woman as he appeared. “I knew ’e’d come back.”

“I heard him,” said Mr. Polly, and looked about. “Just gimme the old poker handle that’s under the beer engine.”

The door opened softly and Mr. Polly turned quickly. But it was only the pointed nose and intelligent face of the young man with the gilt spectacles and discreet manner. He coughed and the spectacles fixed Mr. Polly.

“I say,” he said with quiet earnestness. “There’s a chap out here seems to want someone.”

“Why don’t he come in?” said Mr. Polly.

“He seems to want you out there.”

“What’s he want?”

“I think,” said the spectacled young man after a thoughtful moment, “he appears to have brought you a present of fish.”

“Isn’t he shouting?”

“He is a little boisterous.”

“He’d better come in.”

The manner of the spectacled young man intensified. “I wish you’d come out and persuade him to go away,” he said. “His language⁠—isn’t quite the thing⁠—ladies.”

“It never was,” said the plump woman, her voice charged with sorrow.

Mr. Polly moved towards the door and stood with his hand on the handle. The gold-spectacled face disappeared.

“Now, my man,” came his voice from outside, “be careful what you’re saying⁠—”

“Oo in all the World and Hereafter are you to call me, me man?” cried Uncle Jim in the voice of one astonished and pained beyond endurance, and added scornfully: “You gold-eyed geezer, you!”

“Tut, tut!” said the gentleman in gilt glasses. “Restrain yourself!”

Mr. Polly emerged, poker in hand, just in time to see what followed. Uncle Jim in his shirtsleeves and a state of ferocious decolletage, was holding something⁠—yes!⁠—a dead eel by means of a piece of newspaper about its tail, holding it down and back and a little sideways in such a way as to smite with it upward and hard. It struck the spectacled gentleman under the jaw with a peculiar dead thud, and a cry of horror came from the two seated parties at the sight. One of the girls shrieked piercingly, “Horace!” and everyone sprang up. The sense of helping numbers came to Mr. Polly’s aid.

“Drop it!” he cried, and came down the steps waving his poker and thrusting the spectacled gentleman before him as once heroes were wont to wield the ox-hide shield.

Uncle Jim gave ground suddenly, and trod upon the foot of a young man in a blue shirt, who immediately thrust at him violently with both hands.

“Lea go!” howled Uncle Jim. “That’s the chap I’m looking for!” and pressing the head of the spectacled gentleman aside, smote hard at Mr. Polly.

But at the sight of this indignity inflicted upon the spectacled gentleman a woman’s heart was stirred, and a pink parasol drove hard and true at Uncle Jim’s wiry neck, and at the same moment the young man in the blue shirt sought to collar him and lost his grip again.

“Suffragettes,” gasped Uncle Jim with the ferule at his throat. “Everywhere!” and aimed a second more successful blow at Mr. Polly.

“Wup!” said Mr. Polly.

But now the jam and egg party was joining in the fray. A stout yet still fairly able-bodied gentleman in white and black checks enquired: “What’s the fellow up to? Ain’t there no police here?” and it was evident that once more public opinion was rallying to the support of Mr. Polly.

“Oh, come on then all the lot of you!” cried Uncle Jim, and backing dexterously whirled the eel round in a destructive circle. The pink sunshade was torn from the hand that gripped it and whirled athwart