hesitated for a moment whether he should not run upstairs to the

bedrooms and get a ewer of water to throw on the flames. At this rate

Rumbold's would be ablaze in five minutes! Things were going all too

fast for Mr. Polly. He ran towards the staircase door, and its hot

breath pulled him up sharply. Then he dashed out through his shop. The

catch of the front door was sometimes obstinate; it was now, and

instantly he became frantic. He rattled and stormed and felt the

parlour already ablaze behind him. In another moment he was in the

High Street with the door wide open.

The staircase behind him was crackling now like horsewhips and pistol

shots.

He had a vague sense that he wasn't doing as he had proposed, but the

chief thing was his sense of that uncontrolled fire within. What was

he going to do? There was the fire brigade station next door but one.

The Fishbourne High Street had never seemed so empty.

Far off at the corner by the God's Providence Inn a group of three

stiff hobbledehoys in their black, best clothes, conversed

intermittently with Taplow, the policeman.

"Hi!" bawled Mr. Polly to them. "Fire! Fire!" and struck by a horrible

thought, the thought of Rumbold's deaf mother-in-law upstairs, began

to bang and kick and rattle with the utmost fury at Rumbold's shop

229

The History of Mr Polly