CHAPTER THE SECOND
THE DISMISSAL OF PARSONS
I
SUDDENLY Parsons got himself dismissed.
He got himself dismissed under circumstances of peculiar violence, that left a deep impression on Mr. Polly’s mind. He wondered about it for years afterwards, trying to get the rights of the case.
Parsons’ apprenticeship was over; he had reached the status of an Improver, and he dressed the window of the Manchester department. By all the standards available he dressed it very well. By his own standards he dressed it wonderfully. “Well, O’ Man,” he used to say, “there’s one thing about my position here,—I can dress a window.”
And when trouble was under discussion he would hold that “little Fluffums”—which was the apprentices’ name for Mr. Garvace, the senior partner and managing director of the Bazaar—would think twice before he got rid of the only man in the place who could make a windowful of Manchester goods tell.
Then like many a fellow artist he fell a prey to theories.
“The art of window dressing is in its infancy, O’ Man
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