The History of Mr. Polly

nial came along and checked the effort. He was apprenticed in one of those large, rather low-class establishments which sell everything, from pianos and furniture to books and millinery, a

to business, in a sort of uncomfortabl

ou watched the growth of your moustache with interest and impatience, and mastered the beginnings of social intercourse. You talked, and found there were things amusing to say. Also you had regular pocket money,

ch money though,

of girl apprentices in the shop somehow raised his standard of cleanliness to a more acceptable level. He didn't of course have very much to do with the feminine staff in his department, but he spoke to them casually as he traversed foreign parts of the Bazaar, or got out of their way politely, or helped them to lift down heavy boxes, and on such occasions he felt their scrutiny. Except in the course of business or at meal times the men and women of the establishment had very little opportunity of meeting; the men were in their rooms and the girls in theirs. Yet these feminine creatures, at once so near and so remote, affected him profoundly. He would watch them going to and fro, a

evening with the bearing of desperate dogs. Sometimes, when they had money, they went into public houses and had drinks. Then they would become more desperate than ever, and walk along the pavement under the gas lamps arm in arm singing. Platt had a good tenor voice, and had been in a church choir, and so he led the singing; Parsons had a servi

ices soar like hawks and feel very happy. The dogs of the district would be stirred to hopeless emulation, and would keep it up for long after the Three Ps

talking in their dormitory after the gas was out until the other men were reduced to throwing boots; they skulked from their departments in the s

curly features, and a large blob-shaped nose. He had a great memory and a real interest in literature. He knew great portions of Shakespeare and Milton by heart, and would recite them at the slightest provocation. He read everything he could get hold of, and if he liked it he read it aloud. It did not matter who else liked i

tersign was: "We

windows-looking for balconies. A ladder in the yard flooded his mind with romantic ideas. Then Parsons discovered an Italian writer, whose name Mr. Polly rendered as "Bocashieu," and after some excursions into that author's remains the t

nd large, loose, artistic silk ties, which they tied very much on one si

ought the birth feast of Gargantua the most glorious piece of writing in the world, and I am not certain they wer

. who shared the dormitory, the Three Ps alwa

e like in our corner," Platt maintai

faced, earnest-eyed improver, who was leading a p

oared Parsons, "wh

the time for

time we've go

ligious controver

nifestly, chaste in word and deed, industrious, studiously kindly. When the junior apprentice had sore feet and homesickness Morrison washed the feet and comforted the heart, and he helped other men to get t

is mind could not contrive to reconc

t no blessed Joy de Vive; that's what's wrong with him. Let's go down to t

," said Mr. Polly, slap

sons. "Always do it on

ho had recently taken to smoking with

and st

tching with knitted brows. "Don't ram it down

self in an attitude of sympathetic pati