The History of Mr. Polly, H. G. Wells [room on the broom read aloud TXT] 📗

a word or so in season from Johnson, to wreck all the harmony of the sad occasion.

The general effect was after this fashion:

First an impression of Mrs. Punt on the right speaking in a refined undertone: “You didn’t, I suppose, Mr. Polly, think to ’ave your poor dear father postmortemed⁠—”

Lady on the left side breaking in: “I was just reminding Grace of the dear dead days beyond recall⁠—”

Attempted reply to Mrs. Punt: “Didn’t think of it for a moment. Can’t give you a piece of this brawn, can I?”

Fragment from the left: “Grace and Beauty they used to call us and we used to sit at the same desk⁠—”

Mrs. Punt, breaking out suddenly: “Don’t swaller your fork, Willy. You see, Mr. Polly, I used to ’ave a young gentleman, a medical student, lodging with me⁠—”

Voice from down the table: “ ’Am, Alfred? I didn’t give you very much.”

Bessie became evident at the back of Mr. Polly’s chair, struggling wildly to get past. Mr. Polly did his best to be helpful. “Can you get past? Lemme sit forward a bit. Urr-oo! Right O.”

Lady to the left going on valiantly and speaking to everyone who cares to listen, while Mrs. Johnson beams beside her: “There she used to sit as bold as brass, and the fun she used to make of things no one could believe⁠—knowing her now. She used to make faces at the mistress through the⁠—”

Mrs. Punt keeping steadily on: “The contents of the stummik at any rate ought to be examined.”

Voice of Mr. Johnson. “Elfrid, pass the mustid down.”

Miriam leaning across the table: “Elfrid!”

“Once she got us all kept in. The whole school!”

Miriam, more insistently: “Elfrid!”

Uncle Pentstemon, raising his voice defiantly: “Trounce ’er again I would if she did as much now. That I would! Dratted mischief!”

Miriam, catching Mr. Polly’s eye: “Elfrid! This lady knows Canterbury. I been telling her you been there.”

Mr. Polly: “Glad you know it.”

The lady shouting: “I like it.”

Mrs. Larkins, raising her voice: “I won’t ’ave my girls spoken of, not by nobody, old or young.”

Pop! imperfectly located.

Mr. Johnson at large: “Ain’t the beer up! It’s the ’eated room.”

Bessie: “Scuse me, sir, passing so soon again, but⁠—” Rest inaudible. Mr. Polly, accommodating himself: “Urr-oo! Right? Right O.”

The knives and forks, probably by some secret common agreement, clash and clatter together and drown every other sound.

“Nobody ’ad the least idea ’ow ’e died⁠—nobody.⁠ ⁠… Willie, don’t golp so. You ain’t in a ’urry, are you? You don’t want to ketch a train or anything⁠—golping like that!”

“D’you remember, Grace, ’ow one day we ’ad writing lesson.⁠ ⁠…”

“Nicer girls no one ever ’ad⁠—though I say it who shouldn’t.”

Mrs. Johnson in a shrill clear hospitable voice: “Harold, won’t Mrs. Larkins ’ave a teeny bit more fowl?”

Mr. Polly rising to the situation. “Or some brawn, Mrs. Larkins?” Catching Uncle Pentstemon’s eye: “Can’t send you some brawn, sir?”

“Elfrid!”

Loud hiccup from Uncle Pentstemon, momentary consternation followed by giggle from Annie.

The narration at Mr. Polly’s elbow pursued a quiet but relentless course. “Directly the new doctor came in he said: ’Everything must be took out and put in spirits⁠—everything.’ ”

Willie⁠—audible ingurgitation.

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.

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.

“I’ll die!” she said. “I don’t believe you care a bit!”

Feeling a little disorganized by her hilarity and a shocked expression that had come to the face of cousin Miriam, he made some indistinct excuse and went out through the back room and scullery into the little garden. The cool air and a very slight drizzle of rain was a relief⁠—anyhow. But the black mood of the replete dyspeptic had come upon him. His soul darkened hopelessly. He walked with his hands in his pockets down the path between the rows of exceptionally cultured peas and unreasonably, overwhelmingly, he was smitten by sorrow for his father. The heady