say," said Pollyooly, faithfully reproducing
Flossie's pronunciation.

"Her fiance?" roared Hilary Vance in accents of the liveliest surprise,
dismay, and horror. "Oh, woman! Woman! The faithlessness! The
treachery!"

With a vast, magnificent expression of despair he dropped heavily on to
the nearest chair without pausing to select a strong one. Under the
stress of his emotion and his weight the chair crumpled up; and he sat
down on the floor with a violence which shook the house. He sprang up,
smothered, out of regard for the age and sex of Pollyooly, some
language suggested by the occurrence, and with a terrific kick sent the
fragments of the chair flying across the studio. Then he howled, and
holding his right toes in his left hand, hopped on his left leg. He
had forgotten that he was wearing thin, but patent-leather, shoes.

Then he put his feet gingerly upon the floor, ground his teeth, and
roared:

"Knock the stuffing out of me, will he? I'll tear him limb from limb!
The insidious villain! I'll teach him to come between me and the woman
I love!"

Sad to relate Pollyooly's heart, inured to violence by her battles with
the young male inhabitants of the slum behind the Temple, where she had
lodged before becoming the housekeeper of the Honourable John Ruffin,
leapt joyfully at the thought of the fray, in spite of her friendship
with Hilary Vance; and her quick mind grasped the fact that she might
watch it in security from the door of her bedroom. Then her duty to
her host came uppermost.

"But please, Mr. Vance: he's a boxer. He boxes at the Chiswick
Polytechnic," she cried anxiously.

"Let him box! I'll tear him limb from limb!" roared Hilary Vance
ferociously; and he strode up and down the studio, limping that he
might not press heavily on his aching toes.

Pollyooly gazed at him doubtfully. Flossie's account of Mr.
Butterwick's prowess had impressed her too deeply to permit her to
believe that anything but painful ignominious defeat awaited Hilary
Vance at his hands.

"But he blacks people's eyes and makes their noses bleed," protested
Pollyooly.

"I'll tear him limb from limb!" roared Hilary Vance, still ferociously,
but with less conviction in his tone.

"And he doesn't care how big anybody is, if they don't know how to
box," Pollyooly insisted.

"No more do I!" roared Hilary Vance.

He stamped up and down the studio yet more vigorously since his aching
toes were growing easier.