out then and there, and
back along the quay like a man in a dream. All the way he kept fumbling
the document without daring to open it, and when he reached his own door
he just sat down on the little low wall outside, laid the cursed thing
on his knee, pulled a bandanna out of his breeches pocket, and polished
the top of his poor head till it fairly blazed in the eye of the sun.

He was sitting there, dazed and quiet, when the door opened and out came
Mary Polly with a rag-mat in her hand, meaning to bang it against the
wall, as her custom was.

"Hullo!" says she, stopping short on the threshold. "Back again, like a
bad penny?"

"Bad enough, this time," says her husband, without turning round; and
drops his head with a groan.

I must say the woman's behaviour was peculiar. For first of all she
stepped forward and gave his head a stroking, just as you might a
child's, and then she looks up and down the street, and says,
"I'm ashamed of 'ee, carryin' on like this for all the public to see.
Stick your hands in your pockets," says she.

"What's the use of that?" But he did it.

"Now whistle."

"Eh?"

"Whistle a tune."

"But I can't."

"You can if you try; I've heard you whistlin' 'Rule Britannia' scores of
times, or bits of it. Now I'm goin' to beat this mat and make believe
to be talkin' to 'ee. At the very first sound old Mrs. Scantlebury'll
poke her head out, she always does. So you go on whistlin', and don't
mind anything I say. There'll be no peace in life for us after she gets
wind you've been sacked; and just now I want a little time to myself to
relieve my feelin's."

So Jacka started to whistle, feeling mighty shy, and Mary Polly picked
up the mat.

"I wish," says she to the mat, "you was Mr. (whang) Zephaniah (whang)
Job (whang). I do dearly wish for my life you was Mr. (whang) Zephaniah
(whang) Job (whang). I'd take your ugly old head with its stivery grey
whiskers and I'd (bang, whang)--I'd (bang, whang)--I'd treat you like
this here mat, and lay you down for folks to wipe their shoes upon, Mr.
(whang) Zephaniah (whang) Job (whang)."

"When Britain first at Heaven's command," whistled Jacka; and the Widow
Scantlebury, two doors up the street, was properly taken in. An hour
later, when the news of Jacka's dismissal was all over the town, she had
to sit down and consider. "I see'd him come up the street"--this was
how she told the story, being the sort of woman that never knows where