Mr. Polly investigated his neck. "I suppose it is. Anyone seen a tie?" A small boy produced a grimy strip of spotted blue silk. "Human life isn't safe with you," said Mr. Polly as a parting shot. "(Kik) Yours isn't," said Mr. Rusper.... And they got small satisfaction out of the Bench, which refused altogether to perceive the relentless correctitude of the behaviour of either party, and reproved the eagerness of Mrs. Rusper--speaking to her gently, firmly but exasperatingly as "My Good Woman" and telling her to "Answer the Question! Answer the Question!" "Seems a Pity," said the chairman, when binding them over to keep the peace, "you can't behave like Respectable Tradesmen. Seems a Great Pity. Bad Example to the Young and all that. Don't do any Good to the town, don't do any Good to yourselves, don't do any manner of Good, to have all the Tradesmen in the Place scrapping about the Pavement of an Afternoon. Think we're letting you off very easily this time, and hope it will be a Warning to you. Don't expect Men of your Position to come up before us. Very Regrettable Affair. Eh?" He addressed the latter enquiry to his two colleagues. "Exactly, exactly," said the colleague to the right. "Er--(kik)," said Mr. Rusper. VII But the disgust that overshadowed Mr. Polly's being as he sat upon the stile, had other and profounder justification than his quarrel with Rusper and the indignity of appearing before the county bench. He was for the first time in his business career short with his rent for the approaching quarter day, and so far as he could trust his own handling of figures he was sixty or seventy pounds on the wrong side of solvency. And that was the outcome of fifteen years of passive endurance of dulness throughout the best years of his life! What would Miriam say when she learnt this, and was invited to face the prospect of exile--heaven knows what sort of exile!--from their present home? She would grumble and scold and become limply unhelpful, he knew, and none the less so because he could not help things. She would say he ought to have worked harder, and a hundred such exasperating pointless things. Such thoughts as these require no aid from undigested cold pork and cold potatoes and pickles to darken the soul, and with these aids his soul was black indeed. "May as well have a bit of a walk," said Mr. Polly at last, after nearly intolerable meditations, and sat round and put a leg over the stile. He remained still for some time before he brought over the other leg. "Kill myself," he murmured at last.