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outhouses to the riverside, seeking a weapon, and found an old paddle
boat hook. With this he smote Uncle Jim as he emerged by the door of
the tap. Uncle Jim, blaspheming dreadfully and with dire stabbing
intimations in either hand, came through the splintering paddle like a
circus rider through a paper hoop, and once more Mr. Polly dropped his
weapon and fled.
A careless observer watching him sprint round and round the inn in
front of the lumbering and reproachful pursuit of Uncle Jim might have
formed an altogether erroneous estimate of the issue of the campaign.
Certain compensating qualities of the very greatest military value
were appearing in Mr. Polly even as he ran; if Uncle Jim had strength
and brute courage and the rich toughening experience a Reformatory
Home affords, Mr. Polly was nevertheless sober, more mobile and with a
mind now stimulated to an almost incredible nimbleness. So that he not
only gained on Uncle Jim, but thought what use he might make of this
advantage. The word "strategious" flamed red across the tumult of his
mind. As he came round the house for the third time, he darted
suddenly into the yard, swung the door to behind himself and bolted
it, seized the zinc pig's pail that stood by the entrance to the
kitchen and had it neatly and resonantly over Uncle Jim's head as he
came belatedly in round the outhouse on the other side. One of the
splintered bottles jabbed Mr. Polly's ear--at the time it seemed of no
importance--and then Uncle Jim was down and writhing dangerously and
noisily upon the yard tiles, with his head still in the pig pail and
his bottles gone to splinters, and Mr. Polly was fastening the kitchen
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