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

a walk with the gals, and then come back to supper. You might all go and meet Annie while I straighten up, and lay things out.”

“You’re not to go touching the front room mind,” said Miriam.

“Who’s going to touch yer front room?” said Mrs. Larkins, apparently forgetful for a moment of Mr. Polly.

Both girls dressed with some care while Mrs. Larkins sketched the better side of their characters, and then the three young people went out to see something of Stamton. In the streets their risible mood gave way to a self-conscious propriety that was particularly evident in Miriam’s bearing. They took Mr. Polly to the Stamton Wreckeryation ground⁠—that at least was what they called it⁠—with its handsome custodian’s cottage, its asphalt paths, its Jubilee drinking fountain, its clumps of wallflower and daffodils, and so to the new cemetery and a distant view of the Surrey hills, and round by the gasworks to the canal to the factory, that presently disgorged a surprised and radiant Annie.

“El-lo” said Annie.

It is very pleasant to every properly constituted mind to be a centre of amiable interest for one’s fellow creatures, and when one is a young man conscious of becoming mourning and a certain wit, and the fellow creatures are three young and ardent and sufficiently expressive young women who dispute for the honour of walking by one’s side, one may be excused a secret exaltation. They did dispute.

“I’m going to ’ave ’im now,” said Annie. “You two’ve been ’aving ’im all the afternoon. Besides, I’ve got something to say to him.”

She had something to say to him. It came presently. “I say,” she said abruptly. “I did get them rings out of a prize packet.”

“What rings?” asked Mr. Polly.

“What you saw at your poor father’s funeral. You made out they meant something. They didn’t⁠—straight.”

“Then some people have been very remiss about their chances,” said Mr. Polly, understanding.

“They haven’t had any chances,” said Annie. “I don’t believe in making oneself too free with people.”

“Nor me,” said Mr. Polly.

“I may be a bit larky and cheerful in my manner,” Annie admitted. “But it don’t mean anything. I ain’t that sort.”

“Right O,” said Mr. Polly.

IV

It was past ten when Mr. Polly found himself riding back towards Easewood in a broad moonlight with a little Japanese lantern dangling from his handle bar and making a fiery circle of pinkish light on and round about his front wheel. He was mightily pleased with himself and the day. There had been four-ale to drink at supper mixed with gingerbeer, very free and jolly in a jug. No shadow fell upon the agreeable excitement of his mind until he faced the anxious and reproachful face of Johnson, who had been sitting up for him, smoking and trying to read the odd volume of Purchas His Pilgrimes⁠—about the monk who went into Sarmatia and saw the Tartar carts.

“Not had an accident, Elfrid?” said Johnson.

The weakness of Mr. Polly’s character came out in his reply. “Not much,” he said. “Pedal got a bit loose in Stamton, O’ Man. Couldn’t ride it. So I looked up the cousins while I waited.”

“Not the Larkins lot?”

“Yes.”

Johnson yawned hugely and asked for and was given friendly particulars. “Well,” he said, “better get to bed. I have been reading that book of yours⁠—rum stuff. Can’t make it out quite. Quite out of date I should say if you asked me.”

“That’s all right, O’ Man,” said Mr. Polly.

“Not a bit of use for anything I can see.”

“Not a bit.”

“See any shops in Stamton?”

“Nothing to speak of,” said Mr. Polly. “Goo’-night, O’ Man.”

Before and after this brief conversation his mind ran on his cousins very warmly and prettily in the vein of high spring. Mr. Polly had been drinking at the poisoned fountains of English literature, fountains so unsuited to the needs of a decent clerk or shopman, fountains charged with the dangerous suggestion that it becomes a man of gaiety and spirit to make love, gallantly and rather carelessly. It seemed to him that evening to be handsome and humorous and practicable to make love to all his cousins. It wasn’t that he liked any of them particularly, but he liked something about them. He liked their youth and femininity, their resolute high spirits and their interest in him.

They laughed at nothing and knew nothing, and Minnie had lost a tooth and Annie screamed and shouted, but they were interesting, intensely interesting.

And Miriam wasn’t so bad as the others. He had kissed them all and had been kissed in addition several times by Minnie⁠—“oscoolatory exercise.”

He buried his nose in his pillow and went to sleep⁠—to dream of anything rather than getting on in the world, as a sensible young man in his position ought to have done.

V

And now Mr. Polly began to lead a divided life. With the Johnsons he professed to be inclined, but not so conclusively inclined as to be inconvenient, to get a shop for himself, to be, to use the phrase he preferred, “looking for an opening.” He would ride off in the afternoon upon that research, remarking that he was going to “cast a strategetical eye” on Chertsey or Weybridge. But if not all roads, still a great majority of them, led by however devious ways to Stamton, and to laughter and increasing familiarity. Relations developed with Annie and Minnie and Miriam. Their various characters were increasingly interesting. The laughter became perceptibly less abundant, something of the fizz had gone from the first opening, still these visits remained wonderfully friendly and upholding. Then back he would come to grave but evasive discussions with Johnson.

Johnson was really anxious to get Mr. Polly “into something.” His was a reserved honest character, and he would really have preferred to see his lodger doing things for himself than receive his money for housekeeping. He hated waste, anybody’s waste, much more than he desired profit. But Mrs. Johnson was all for Mr. Polly’s loitering. She seemed much the more human and likeable of the two to Mr. Polly.

He tried at times to work up enthusiasm for