"Three golden pounds," said the plump woman. "'That won't last very long,' he says. 'But there ain't no hurry. I'll be back in a week about.' If I wasn't one of the hoping sort--" She left the sentence unfinished. Mr. Polly reflected. "What sort of a size is he?" he asked. "I'm not one of your Herculaceous sort, if you mean that. Nothing very wonderful bicepitally." "You'll scoot," said the plump woman with conviction rather than bitterness. "You'd better scoot now, and I'll try and find some money for him to go away again when he comes. It ain't reasonable to expect you to do anything but scoot. But I suppose it's the way of a woman in trouble to try and get help from a man, and hope and hope. I'm the hoping sort." "How long's he been about?" asked Mr. Polly, ignoring his own outlook. "Three months it is come the seventh since he come in by that very back door--and I hadn't set eyes on him for seven long years. He stood in the door watchin' me, and suddenly he let off a yelp--like a dog, and there he was grinning at the fright he'd given me. 'Good old Aunty Flo,' he says, 'ain't you dee-lighted to see me?' he says, 'now I'm Reformed.'" The plump lady went to the sink and filled the kettle. "I never did like 'im," she said, standing at the sink. "And seeing him there, with his teeth all black and broken--. P'raps I didn't give him much of a welcome at first. Not what would have been kind to him. 'Lord!' I said, 'it's Jim.'" "'It's Jim,' he said. 'Like a bad shillin'--like a damned bad shilling. Jim and trouble. You all of you wanted me Reformed and now you got me Reformed. I'm a Reformatory Reformed Character, warranted all right and turned out as such. Ain't you going to ask me in, Aunty dear?' "'Come in,' I said, 'I won't have it said I wasn't ready to be kind to you!' "He comes in and shuts the door. Down he sits in that chair. 'I come to torment you!' he says, 'you Old Sumpthing!' and begins at me.... No human being could ever have been called such things before. It made me cry out. 'And now,' he says, 'just to show I ain't afraid of 'urting you,' he says, and ups and twists my wrist." Mr. Polly gasped. "I could stand even his vi'lence," said the plump woman, "if it wasn't for the child." Mr. Polly went to the kitchen window and surveyed his namesake, who was away up the garden path with her hands behind her back, and whisps of black hair in disorder about her little face, thinking, thinking profoundly, about ducklings. "You two oughtn't to be left," he said. The plump woman stared at his back with hard hope in her eyes. "I don't see that it's _my_ affair," said Mr. Polly. The plump woman resumed her business with the kettle. "I'd like to have a look at him before I go," said Mr. Polly, thinking aloud. And added, "somehow. Not my business, of course." "Lord!" he cried with a start at a noise in the bar, "who's that?" "Only a customer," said the plump woman. VI