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door against him.
"Can't go on like this for ever," said Mr. Polly, whooping for breath,
and selecting a weapon from among the brooms that stood behind the
kitchen door.
Uncle Jim was losing his head. He was up and kicking the door and
bellowing unamiable proposals and invitations, so that a strategist
emerging silently by the tap door could locate him without difficulty,
steal upon him unawares and--!
But before that felling blow could be delivered Uncle Jim's ear had
caught a footfall, and he turned. Mr. Polly quailed and lowered his
broom,--a fatal hesitation.
"
Now I got you!" cried Uncle Jim, dancing forward in a disconcerting
zigzag.
He rushed to close, and Mr. Polly stopped him neatly, as it were a
miracle, with the head of the broom across his chest. Uncle Jim seized
the broom with both hands. "Lea-go!" he said, and tugged. Mr. Polly
shook his head, tugged, and showed pale, compressed lips. Both tugged.
Then Uncle Jim tried to get round the end of the broom; Mr. Polly
circled away. They began to circle about one another, both tugging
hard, both intensely watchful of the slightest initiative on the part
of the other. Mr. Polly wished brooms were longer, twelve or thirteen
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