ld make her angry
because I lugged that cat Polly downstairs is more than I can
understand. Well, I shan't die of it."

On re-entering the house he found all quiet. Polly had returned to her
chamber, Mrs. Bubb was in the Cheesemans' room. He went down into the
kitchen, where the gas was burning, and sat till the landlady came down.

"I don't see as you did much good," was Mrs. Bubb's first remark, in
the tone which signifies reaction after excitement. "It weren't worth
breaking a door in, it seems to me."

Gammon hung his head.

"Didn't Polly tell her anything?"

"She stuck out she knew where the 'usband was, and that's all."

"How do you know?"

"Polly said so as she went upstairs, and 'oped her awnt 'ud sleep well
on it."

"H'm! I suppose that's why I couldn't get a word out of Mrs. Clover.
Have the door mended, Mrs. Bubb, and charge me with it. Got anything to
drink handy?"

"That I 'aven't, Mr. Gammon, except water."

Gammon looked at his watch.

"Why, it's only just half-past eleven. Hanged if I didn't think it was
past midnight! I must go round and get a drop of something."

When he came back from quenching his thirst the house was in darkness.
He strode the familiar ascent, and by Polly's door (barricaded inside
with the chest of drawers) hummed a mirthful strain. As he jumped into
bed the events of the evening all at once struck him in such a comical
light that he uttered a great guffaw, and for the next ten minutes he
lay under the bedclothes shaking with laughter.

CHAPTER XI

THE NOSE OF THE TREFOYLES

At noon next day a cab drove up to Mrs. Bubb's house; from it alighted
Miss Sparkes, who, with the help of the cabman, brought downstairs a
tin box, a wooden box, two bandboxes, and three newspaper bundles. With
no one did she exchange a word of farewell; the Cheesemans' were out,
the landlady and Moggie kept below stairs. So Polly turned her back
upon Kennington Road, and shook the dust thereof from her feet for ever.

Willingly she had accepted a proposal that she should share the room of
her friend Miss Waghorn, who was to be married in a month's time to Mr.
Nibby, and did not mind a little inconvenience. The room was on the
third floor of a house at the north end of Shaftesbury Avenue; it
measured twelve feet by fourteen. When Polly's bandboxes had been
thrust under the bed and her larger luggage built up in a corner, there
was nice standing room both for her and Miss Waghorn. T