The History of Mr. Polly H. G. Wells (comprehension books TXT) 📖

dimpled at every joint, were clasped in front of her; she seemed as it were to embrace herself with infinite confidence and kindliness as one who knew herself good in substance, good in essence, and would show her gratitude to God by that ready acceptance of all that he had given her. Her head was a little on one side, not much, but just enough to speak of trustfulness, and rob her of the stiff effect of self-reliance. And she slept.

“My sort,” said Mr. Polly, and opened the door very softly, divided between the desire to enter and come nearer and an instinctive indisposition to break slumbers so manifestly sweet and satisfying.

She awoke with a start, and it amazed Mr. Polly to see swift terror flash into her eyes. Instantly it had gone again.

“Law!” she said, her face softening with relief, “I thought you were Jim.”

“I’m never Jim,” said Mr. Polly.

“You’ve got his sort of hat.”

“Ah!” said Mr. Polly, and leant over the bar.

“It just came into my head you was Jim,” said the plump lady, dismissed the topic and stood up. “I believe I was having forty winks,” she said, “if all the truth was told. What can I do for you?”

“Cold meat?” said Mr. Polly.

“There is cold meat,” the plump woman admitted.

“And room for it.”

The plump woman came and leant over the bar and regarded him judicially, but kindly. “There’s some cold boiled beef,” she said, and added: “A bit of crisp lettuce?”

“New mustard,” said Mr. Polly.

“And a tankard!”

“A tankard.”

They understood each other perfectly.

“Looking for work?” asked the plump woman.

“In a way,” said Mr. Polly.

They smiled like old friends.

Whatever the truth may be about love, there is certainly such a thing as friendship at first sight. They liked each other’s voices, they liked each other’s way of smiling and speaking.

“It’s such beautiful weather this spring,” said Mr. Polly, explaining everything.

“What sort of work do you want?” she asked.

“I’ve never properly thought that out,” said Mr. Polly. “I’ve been looking round⁠—for ideas.”

“Will you have your beef in the tap or outside? That’s the tap.”

Mr. Polly had a glimpse of an oaken settle. “In the tap will be handier for you,” he said.

“Hear that?” said the plump lady.

“Hear what?”

“Listen.”

Presently the silence was broken by a distant howl. “Oooooo-ver!” “Eh?” she said.

He nodded.

“That’s the ferry. And there isn’t a ferryman.”

“Could I?”

“Can you punt?”

“Never tried.”

“Well⁠—pull the pole out before you reach the end of the punt, that’s all. Try.”

Mr. Polly went out again into the sunshine.

At times one can tell so much so briefly. Here are the facts then⁠—bare. He found a punt and a pole, got across to the steps on the opposite side, picked up an elderly gentleman in an alpaca jacket and a pith helmet, cruised with him vaguely for twenty minutes, conveyed him tortuously into the midst of a thicket of forget-me-not spangled sedges, splashed some water-weed over him, hit him twice with the punt pole, and finally landed him, alarmed but abusive, in treacherous soil at the edge of a hay meadow about forty yards down stream, where he immediately got into difficulties with a noisy, aggressive little white dog, which was guardian of a jacket.

Mr. Polly returned in a complicated manner to his moorings.

He found the plump woman rather flushed and tearful, and seated at one of the green tables outside.

“I been laughing at you,” she said.

“What for?” asked Mr. Polly.

“I ain’t ’ad such a laugh since Jim come ’ome. When you ’it ’is ’ed, it ’urt my side.”

“It didn’t hurt his head⁠—not particularly.”

She waved her head. “Did you charge him anything?”

“Gratis,” said Mr. Polly. “I never thought of it.”

The plump woman pressed her hands to her sides and laughed silently for a space. “You ought to have charged him sumpthing,” she said. “You better come and have your cold meat, before you do any more puntin’. You and me’ll get on together.”

Presently she came and stood watching him eat. “You eat better than you punt,” she said, and then, “I dessay you could learn to punt.”

“Wax to receive and marble to retain,” said Mr. Polly. “This beef is a bit of all right, Ma’m. I could have done differently if I hadn’t been punting on an empty stomach. There’s a lear feeling as the pole goes in⁠—”

“I’ve never held with fasting,” said the plump woman.

“You want a ferryman?”

“I want an odd man about the place.”

“I’m odd, all right. What’s your wages?”

“Not much, but you get tips and pickings. I’ve a sort of feeling it would suit you.”

“I’ve a sort of feeling it would. What’s the duties? Fetch and carry? Ferry? Garden? Wash bottles? Ceteris paribus?”

“That’s about it,” said the fat woman.

“Give me a trial.”

“I’ve more than half a mind. Or I wouldn’t have said anything about it. I suppose you’re all right. You’ve got a sort of half-respectable look about you. I suppose you ’aven’t done anything.”

“Bit of arson,” said Mr. Polly, as if he jested.

“So long as you haven’t the habit,” said the plump woman.

“My first time, M’am,” said Mr. Polly, munching his way through an excellent big leaf of lettuce. “And my last.”

“It’s all right if you haven’t been to prison,” said the plump woman. “It isn’t what a man’s happened to do makes ’im bad. We all happen to do things at times. It’s bringing it home to him, and spoiling his self-respect does the mischief. You don’t look a wrong ’un. ’Ave you been to prison?”

“Never.”

“Nor a reformatory? Nor any institution?”

“Not me. Do I look reformed?”

“Can you paint and carpenter a bit?”

“Well, I’m ripe for it.”

“Have a bit of cheese?”

“If I might.”

And the way she brought the cheese showed Mr. Polly that the business was settled in her mind.

He spent the afternoon exploring the premises of the Potwell Inn and learning the duties that might be expected of him, such as Stockholm tarring fences, digging potatoes, swabbing out boats, helping people land, embarking, landing and timekeeping for the hirers of two rowing boats and one Canadian canoe, baling out the said vessels and concealing their leaks and defects from prospective hirers, persuading inexperienced hirers to start down