Beauty!" said Mrs. Polly at last to a tremendous silence, picking up

and dusting the rejected headdress. "Tantrums," she added. "I 'aven't

patience." And moving with the slow reluctance of a deeply offended

woman, she began to pile together the simple apparatus of their recent

meal, for transportation to the scullery sink.

The repast she had prepared for him did not seem to her to justify his

ingratitude. There had been the cold pork from Sunday and some nice

cold potatoes, and Rashdall's Mixed Pickles, of which he was

inordinately fond. He had eaten three gherkins, two onions, a small

cauliflower head and several capers with every appearance of appetite,

and indeed with avidity; and then there had been cold suet pudding to

follow, with treacle, and then a nice bit of cheese. It was the pale,

hard sort of cheese he liked; red cheese he declared was indigestible.

He had also had three big slices of greyish baker's bread, and had

drunk the best part of the jugful of beer.... But there seems to be no

pleasing some people.

Tantrums!" said Mrs. Polly at the sink, struggling with the mustard

on his plate and expressing the only solution of the problem that

occurred to her.

And Mr. Polly sat on the stile and hated the whole scheme of

life--which was at once excessive and inadequate as a solution. He

hated Foxbourne, he hated Foxbourne High Street, he hated his shop and

The History of Mr Polly