wall. Whenever
his eye rested on one signed by Hilary Vance he sniffed a bitter,
contemptuous sniff. For these he had but three words of criticism;
they were: "Rot!" "Rubbish!" and "Piffle!"

Once he said in a bitterly scoffing tone:

"I suppose your precious guv'ner thinks he's got the artistic
temperament."

"I don't know," said Pollyooly.

He squared briskly up to an easel, danced lightly on his toes before
it, and said:

"I'll give him the artistic temperament all right."

At last he paused in his wanderings before the industrious Pollyooly,
and his eyes fell on the gigantic sock she was darning. She saw his
expression change; something of the fierce confidence of the intrepid
boxer passed out of his face.

"I say, what's that you're darning?" he said quickly.

"It's a sock," said Pollyooly.

"It looks more like a sack than a sock. Whose sock is it?" said Mr.
Reginald Butterwick; and there was a faint note of anxiety in his tone.

"It's Mr. Vance's sock," said Pollyooly; and with gentle pride she held
it up in a fashion to display its full proportions.

Mr. Reginald Butterwick took two or three nervous steps to the right,
looking askance at the sock as he moved. It was not really as large as
a sack.

"Big man, your guv'ner? Eh?" he said in a finely careless tone.

"I should think he was!" cried Pollyooly with enthusiasm.

Mr. Reginald Butterwick looked still more earnestly at the sock and
said:

"One of those tall lanky chaps--eh?"

"He's tall, but he isn't lanky--not a bit," said Pollyooly quickly.
"He's tremendously big--broad and thick as well as tall, you know.
He's more like a giant than a man."

"Oh, I know those giants--flabby--flabby," said Mr. Reginald
Butterwick; and he laughed a short, scoffing laugh which rang uneasy.

"He's not flabby!" cried Pollyooly indignantly. "He's tremendously
strong. Why--why--when he heard you were coming he smashed that chair
and kicked it into the corner just because he was annoyed."

Mr. Reginald Butterwick looked at the smallish fragments of the chair
in the corner; and his face became the face of a quiet, respectable
clerk.

"He did, did he?" he said coldly.

"Yes, and he wanted to tear you limb from limb. He said so," said
Pollyooly.

"That's a game two can play at," said Mr. Reginald Butterwick; but his
tone lacked conviction.

"Oh, he'd do it--quite easily," said Pollyooly confidently.

Mr. Reginald Butterwick stared at her and