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"
Only a customer," said the plump woman.
VI
Mr. Polly made no rash promises, and thought a great deal.
"It seems a good sort of Crib," he said, and added, "for a chap who's
looking for trouble."
But he stayed on and did various things out of the list I have already
given, and worked the ferry, and it was four days before he saw anything
of Uncle Jim. And so resistent is the human mind to things not yet
experienced that he could easily have believed in that time that there
was no such person in the world as Uncle Jim. The plump woman, after
her one outbreak of confidence, ignored the subject, and little Polly
seemed to have exhausted her impressions in her first communication,
and engaged her mind now with a simple directness in the study and
subjugation of the new human being Heaven had sent into her world. The
first unfavourable impression of his punting was soon effaced; he could
nickname ducklings very amusingly, create boats out of wooden splinters,
and stalk and fly from imaginary tigers in the orchard with a convincing
earnestness that was surely beyond the power of any other human being.
She conceded at last that he should be called Mr. Polly, in honour of
her, Miss Polly, even as he desired.
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