The History of Mr. Polly

There followed an anxious peace for three days, and then a rough man in a blue jersey, in the intervals of trying to choke himself with bread and cheese and pickled onions, broke out abruptly into information.

“Jim’s lagged again, Missus,” he said.

“What!” said the landlady.  “Our Jim?”

“Your Jim,” said the man, and after an absolutely necessary pause for swallowing, added:  “Stealin’ a ’atchet.”

He did not speak for some moments, and then he replied to Mr. Polly’s enquiries:  “Yes, a ’atchet.  Down Lammam way—­night before last.”

“What’d ’e steal a ’atchet for?” asked the plump woman.

“’E said ’e wanted a ’atchet.”

“I wonder what he wanted a hatchet for?” said Mr. Polly, thoughtfully.

“I dessay ’e ’ad a use for it,” said the gentleman in the blue jersey, and he took a mouthful that amounted to conversational suicide.  There was a prolonged pause in the little bar, and Mr. Polly did some rapid thinking.

He went to the window and whistled.  “I shall stick it,” he whispered at last. “’Atchets or no ’atchets.”

He turned to the man with the blue jersey when he thought him clear for speech again.  “How much did you say they’d given him?” he asked.

“Three munce,” said the man in the blue jersey, and refilled anxiously, as if alarmed at the momentary clearness of his voice.