The History of Mr. Polly

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.