e place really
clean for him," said the Honourable John Ruffin with a chuckle.

"Oh, yes; I will," said Pollyooly firmly.

The Honourable John Ruffin chuckled again, and said:

"Mr. Vance is going to have the spring cleaning of a lifetime."

"Yes, sir. It's not quite summer-time yet," said Pollyooly.

The next morning before taking the train to Buda-Pesth, he despatched
her, the Lump, and the brown tin box which contained their clothes, to
Chelsea in a taxicab. Hilary Vance welcomed them with the most cordial
exuberance, led the way to his spare bedroom, and with an entire
unconsciousness of that bedroom's amazing resemblance to a
long-forgotten dust-bin, invited Pollyooly to unpack the box and make
herself at home.

Pollyooly gazed slowly round the room, and then she looked at her host
in some discomfort. She was a well-mannered child, and careful of the
feelings of a host. Then she said in a hesitating voice:

"I think I should like to--to--dust out the room before I unpack,
please."

"By all means--by all means," said Hilary Vance cheerfully; and he went
back to his work.

Owing to his absorption in it he failed to perceive the curious
measures Pollyooly took to dust out the bedroom. She put on an apron,
fastened up her hair and covered it with a large cotton handkerchief,
rolled up her sleeves, and carried a broom, two pails of hot water from
the kitchen, a scrubbing-brush, and a very large piece of soap into the
room she proposed to dust. She shut herself in, took the counterpane
off the bed, shook it with furious vigour, and even more vigourously
still banged it against the end of the bedstead. When she had finished
with it the counterpane was hardly white, but the room was dustier than
ever. She covered up the bed again, took down the pictures and again
made the room dustier. Then she swept the ceiling and the walls.
After doing so she shook the counterpane again. And the room was still
dusty; but the dust was nearly all on the floor, or on the black face
of Pollyooly. She swept it up. Then she went quietly out into the
street with the strips of carpet and banged them against the railings
of the house; this time it was the street that was dustier than ever;
and Pollyooly appeared to have come from the lower Congo. For the next
half-hour, had he not been absorbed in his work, Hilary Vance might
have heard a steady and sustained rasp of a scrubbing-brush.

Pollyooly came to the laying of th