The History of Mr. Polly

hrough by them. Parsons had gone, he said, to London, and found a place as warehouseman in a cheap outfitting shop near St. Paul's Churchyard, where references were not

picturesque. . . . Port Burdock became a dreariness full of faded memories of Parsons and work a bore. Platt reveal

manner of Mr. Garvace presently got upon his nerves. Relations were becoming strained. He a

ion, and during that time he had quite a disagreeable amo

small annuity as a guest with this cousin, and growing a little tiresome on account of some mysterious internal discomfort that the local practitioner diagnosed as imagination. He had aged with mysterious rapidity and become excessively irrit

i

improver in Gents' outfitting I beg to submit myself f

s cousin took him for a walk and pointed out the superior advantages of

lpful, O' Man indeed. I might have

nd partly a high minded but forbidding coffee house and a centre for pleasant Sunday afternoons. M

t Largenial Development."- An

nest

Urgent Loog

him feel more at home. The conversation was awkward and disconnected for a minute or so, and then suddenly a memory of the Port Burdock Bazaar occurred to Mr. Po

e Shoveacious Cult." There were hungry looking individuals of thirty-five or so that he decided must be "Proletelerians"- he had often wanted to find someone who fitted that attractive word. Middle-aged men, "too Old at Forty," discoursed in the waiting-rooms on the outlook in the trade; it had never been so bad, they said, while Mr. Polly wondered if "De-juiced" was a permissible epithet. There were men with an overweening sense of their importance, manifestly annoyed and angry to find themselves still disengaged, and inclined to suspect a plot, and men so faint-hearted one was terrified to imagine their behaviour when it came to a

nd to repeat once more his passionate protestation of interest in the business, his possession of a capacity for zeal - zeal on behalf of anyone who would pay him a yearly salary of twenty-six pounds a year. The prospective employer would unf

phrasemaker would be proffering such combinations as "Chubby Chops," or "Chubby C

s about me, sir," said Mr. Polly bright

g man who mean

, sir. E

your

of motto of mine. From Longfellow.

ed to his ideals, with a faint air of sus

sir," said

or get o

e, nodded appreciation, and sai

rs," said the employer. "My Manchester buyer ca

ngland," sai

d. "For good all round business work I s

n aspiring outfitter. Mr. Polly's conception of his own pose and expression was r

tive employer in a conclusive man

stood up

d the employer a

chops?" said the phrasemonge

you, sir," said Mr. Polly

isfactory," said the