I have hinted that our Mother England had equipped Mr. Polly for the
management of his internal concerns no whit better than she had for
the direction of his external affairs. With a careless generosity she
affords her children a variety of foods unparalleled in the world's
history, and including many condiments and preserved preparations
novel to the human economy. And Miriam did the cooking. Mr. Polly's
system, like a confused and ill-governed democracy, had been brought
to a state of perpetual clamour and disorder, demanding now evil and
unsuitable internal satisfactions, such as pickles and vinegar and the
crackling on pork, and now vindictive external expression, war and
bloodshed throughout the world. So that Mr. Polly had been led into
hatred and a series of disagreeable quarrels with his landlord, his
wholesalers, and most of his neighbours.
Rumbold, the china dealer next door, seemed hostile from the first for
no apparent reason, and always unpacked his crates with a full back to
his new neighbour, and from the first Mr. Polly resented and hated
that uncivil breadth of expressionless humanity, wanted to prod it,
kick it, satirise it. But you cannot satirise a hack, if you have no
friend to nudge while you do it.
At last Mr. Polly could stand it no longer. He approached and prodded
Rumbold.
"Ello!" said Rumbold, suddenly erect and turned about.
"Can't we have some other point of view?" said Mr. Polly. "I'm tired
of the end elevation."
"Eh?" said Mr. Rumbold, frankly puzzled.
"Of all the vertebracious animals man alone raises his face to the
sky, O' Man. Well,--why invert it?"
Rumbold shook his head with a helpless expression.
"Don't like so much Arreary Pensy."
Rumbold distressed in utter obscurity.
"In fact, I'm sick of your turning your back on me, see?"
A great light shone on Rumbold. "That's what you're talking about!" he
said.
"That's it," said Polly.
Rumbold scratched his ear with the three strawy jampots he held in his
hand. "Way the wind blows, I expect," he said. "But what's the fuss?"
"No fuss!" said Mr. Polly. "Passing Remark. I don't like it, O' Man,
that's all."
"Can't help it, if the wind blows my stror," said Mr. Rumbold, still
far from clear about it....
"It isn't ordinary civility," said Mr. Polly.
"Got to unpack 'ow it suits me. Can't unpack with the stror blowing
into one's eyes."
"Needn't unpack like a pig rooting for truffles, need you?"
"Truffles?"
"Needn't unpack like a pig."
Mr. Rumbold apprehended something.
"Pig!" he said, impressed. "You calling me a pig?"
"It's the side I seem to get of you."
"'Ere," said Mr. Rumbold, suddenly fierce and shouting and marking his
point with gesticulated jampots, "you go indoors. I don't want no row
with you, and I don't want you to row with me. I don't know what
you're after, but I'm a peaceable man--teetotaller, too, and a good
thing if _you_ was. See? You go indoors!"
"You mean to say--I'm asking you civilly to stop unpacking--with your
back to me."
"Pig ain't civil, and you ain't sober. You go indoors and _lemme_ _go_
on unpacking. You--you're excited."
"D'you mean--!" Mr. Polly was foiled.
He perceived an immense solidity about Rumbold.
"Get back to your shop and _lemme_ get on with my business," said Mr.
Rumbold. "Stop calling me pigs. See? Sweep your pavemint."
"I came here to make a civil request."
"You came 'ere to make a row. I don't want no truck with you. See? I
don't like the looks of you. See? And I can't stand 'ere all day
arguing. See?"
Pause of mutual inspection.
It occurred to Mr. Polly that probably he was to some extent in the
wrong.
Mr. Rumbold, blowing heavily, walked past him, deposited the jampots
in his shop with an immense affectation that there was no Mr. Polly in
the world, returned, turned a scornful back on Mr. Polly and dived to
the interior of the crate. Mr. Polly stood baffled. Should he kick
this solid mass before him? Should he administer a resounding kick?
No!
He plunged his hands deeply into his trowser pockets, began to whistle
and returned to his own doorstep with an air of profound unconcern.
There for a time, to the tune of "Men of Harlech," he contemplated the
receding possibility of kicking Mr. Rumbold hard. It would be
splendid--and for the moment satisfying. But he decided not to do it.
For indefinable reasons he could not do it. He went indoors and
straightened up his dress ties very slowly and thoughtfully. Presently
he went to the window and regarded Mr. Rumbold obliquely. Mr. Rumbold
was still unpacking....
Mr. Polly had no human intercourse thereafter with Rumbold for fifteen
years. He kept up a Hate.
There was a time when it seemed as if Rumbold might go, but he had a
meeting of his creditors and then went on unpacking as obtusely as
ever.
V
Hinks, the saddler, two shops further down the street, was a different
case. Hinks was the aggressor--practically.
Hinks was a sporting man in his way, with that taste for checks in
costume and tight trousers which is, under Providence, so mysteriously
and invariably associated with equestrian proclivities. At first Mr.
Polly took to him as a character, became frequent in the God's
Providence Inn under his guidance, stood and was stood drinks and
concealed a great ignorance of horses until Hinks became urgent for
him to play billiards or bet.
Then Mr. Polly took to evading him, and Hinks ceased to conceal his
opinion that Mr. Polly was in reality a softish sort of flat.
He did not, however, discontinue conversation with Mr. Polly; he would
come along to him whenever he appeared at his door, and converse about
sport and women and fisticuffs and the pride of life with an air of
extreme initiation, until Mr. Polly felt himself the faintest
underdeveloped intimation of a man that had ever hovered on the verge
of non-existence.
So he invented phrases for Hinks' clothes and took Rusper, the
ironmonger, into his confidence upon the weaknesses of Hinks. He
called him the "Chequered Careerist," and spoke of his patterned legs
as "shivery shakys." Good things of this sort are apt to get round to
people.
He was standing at his door one day, feeling bored, when Hinks
appeared down the street, stood still and regarded him with a strange
malignant expression for a space.
Mr. Polly waved a hand in a rather belated salutation.
Mr. Hinks spat on the pavement and appeared to reflect. Then he came
towards Mr. Polly portentously and paused, and spoke between his teeth
in an earnest confidential tone.
"You been flapping your mouth about me, I'm told," he said.
Mr. Polly felt suddenly spiritless. "Not that I know of," he answered.
"Not that you know of, be blowed! You been flapping your mouth."
"Don't see it," said Mr. Polly.
"Don't see it, be blowed! You go flapping your silly mouth about me
and I'll give you a poke in the eye. See?"
Mr. Hinks regarded the effect of this coldly but firmly, and spat
again.
"Understand me?" he enquired.
"Don't recollect," began Mr. Polly.
"Don't recollect, be blowed! You flap your mouth a dam sight too much.
This place gets more of your mouth than it wants.... Seen this?"
And Mr. Hinks, having displayed a freckled fist of extraordinary size
and pugginess in an ostentatiously familiar manner to Mr. Polly's
close inspection by sight and smell, turned it about this way and that
and shaken it gently for a moment or so, replaced it carefully in his
pocket as if for future use, receded slowly and watchfully for a pace,
and then turned away as if to other matters, and ceased to be even in
outward seeming a friend....