Mr. Polly had declared that when the cyclist discovered him he was

seeking a weapon that should make a conclusive end to Uncle Jim. That

declaration is placed before the reader without comment.

The gun was certainly in possession of Uncle Jim at that time and no

human being but Mr. Polly knows how he got hold of it.

The cyclist was a literary man named Warspite, who suffered from

insomnia; he had risen and come out of his house near Lammam just

before the dawn, and he discovered Mr. Polly partially concealed in

the ditch by the Potwell churchyard wall. It is an ordinary dry ditch,

full of nettles and overgrown with elder and dogrose, and in no way

suggestive of an arsenal. It is the last place in which you would look

for a gun. And he says that when he dismounted to see why Mr. Polly

was allowing only the latter part of his person to show (and that it

would seem by inadvertency), Mr. Polly merely raised his head and

advised him to "Look out!" and added: "He's let fly at me twice

already." He came out under persuasion and with gestures of extreme

caution. He was wearing a white cotton nightgown of the type that has

now been so extensively superseded by pyjama sleeping suits, and his

legs and feet were bare and much scratched and torn and very muddy.

Mr. Warspite takes that exceptionally lively interest in his

fellow-creatures which constitutes so much of the distinctive and

complex charm of your novelist all the world over, and he at once

317

The History of Mr Polly