Page:Jepson--Pollyooly.djvu/63

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POLLYOOLY CHANGES HER ADDRESS
47

have visitors, I can wear my new black frock, the one that came out of the burial-money."

"Good," said the Honorable John Ruffin. "That will tide us over the present crisis."

He found no reason to regret that he had established Pollyooly and the Lump in his attic. He had been right in supposing that the Lump had gained his name from the enjoyment of a pacific nature. He never heard his voice raised in a wail or a whimper. Indeed, he seemed a noiseless child. It also pleased the Honorable John Ruffin greatly that he should be an authentic, but red-haired, cherub, the perfect match of his angel sister. The Honorable John Ruffin had a very strong sense of the fitness of things; and he would not for the world have had it ruffled.

Pollyooly was considerably surprised by his making, or rather trying to make, a change in his diet. At least once a week he would order in a cold roast chicken or a tongue, from Messrs. Spiers and Pond, with whom, for some quite inexplicable reason, his credit was good, and eat a scrap of it after his eggs at breakfast.

Always he said, as he laid down his knife and