Platt came to Polly, who was sorting up collar boxes. "O' Man's doing
his Blooming Window."
"What window?"
"What he said."
Polly remembered.
He went on with his collar boxes with his eye on his senior,
Mansfield. Mansfield was presently called away to the counting house,
and instantly Polly shot out by the street door, and made a rapid
transit along the street front past the Manchester window, and so into
the silkroom door. He could not linger long, but he gathered joy, a
swift and fearful joy, from his brief inspection of Parsons'
unconscious back. Parsons had his tail coat off and was working with
vigour; his habit of pulling his waistcoat straps to the utmost
brought out all the agreeable promise of corpulence in his youthful
frame. He was blowing excitedly and running his fingers through his
hair, and then moving with all the swift eagerness of a man inspired.
All about his feet and knees were scarlet blankets, not folded, not
formally unfolded, but--the only phrase is--shied about. And a great
bar sinister of roller towelling stretched across the front of the
window on which was a ticket, and the ticket said in bold black
letters: "LOOK!"
So soon as Mr. Polly got into the silk department and met Platt he
knew he had not lingered nearly long enough outside. "Did you see the
boards at the back?" said Platt.
He hadn't. "The High Egrugious is fairly On," he said, and dived down
to return by devious subterranean routes to the outfitting department.
Presently the street door opened and Platt, with an air of intense
devotion to business assumed to cover his adoption of that unusual
route, came in and made for the staircase down to the warehouse. He
rolled up his eyes at Polly. "Oh _Lor_!" he said and vanished.
Irresistible curiosity seized Polly. Should he go through the shop to
the Manchester department, or risk a second transit outside?
He was impelled to make a dive at the street door.
"Where are you going?" asked Mansfield.
"Lill Dog," said Polly with an air of lucid explanation, and left him
to get any meaning he could from it.
Parsons was worth the subsequent trouble. Parsons really was extremely
rich. This time Polly stopped to take it in.
Parsons had made a huge symmetrical pile of thick white and red
blankets twisted and rolled to accentuate their woolly richness,
heaped up in a warm disorder, with large window tickets inscribed in
blazing red letters: "Cosy Comfort at Cut Prices," and "Curl up and
Cuddle below Cost." Regardless of the daylight he had turned up the
electric light on that side of the window to reflect a warm glow upon
the heap, and behind, in pursuit of contrasted bleakness, he was now
hanging long strips of grey silesia and chilly coloured linen
dusterings.