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old gentleman loses an incisor tooth. It happened just as Mr. Polly
was approaching Mr. Rusper's shop, and the untoward chance of a motor
car trying to pass a waggon on the wrong side gave Mr. Polly no choice
but to get on to the pavement and dismount. He was always accustomed
to take his time and step off his left pedal at its lowest point, but
the jamming of the free wheel gear made that lowest moment a
transitory one, and the pedal was lifting his foot for another
revolution before he realised what had happened. Before he could
dismount according to his habit the pedal had to make a revolution,
and before it could make a revolution Mr. Polly found himself among
the various sonorous things with which Mr. Rusper adorned the front of
his shop, zinc dustbins, household pails, lawn mowers, rakes, spades
and all manner of clattering things. Before he got among them he had
one of those agonising moments of helpless wrath and suspense that
seem to last ages, in which one seems to perceive everything and think
of nothing but words that are better forgotten. He sent a column of
pails thundering across the doorway and dismounted with one foot in a
sanitary dustbin amidst an enormous uproar of falling ironmongery.
"Put all over the place!" he cried, and found Mr. Rusper emerging from
his shop with the large tranquillities of his countenance puckered to
anger, like the frowns in the brow of a reefing sail. He gesticulated
speechlessly for a moment.
"Kik--jer doing?" he said at last.
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