V
Mr. Polly was not so picturesque a youth as Parsons. He lacked
richness in his voice, and went about in those days with his hands in
his pockets looking quietly speculative.
He specialised in slang and the disuse of English, and he played the
rôle of an appreciative stimulant to Parsons. Words attracted him
curiously, words rich in suggestion, and he loved a novel and striking
phrase. His school training had given him little or no mastery of the
mysterious pronunciation of English and no confidence in himself. His
schoolmaster indeed had been both unsound and variable. New words had
terror and fascination for him; he did not acquire them, he could not
avoid them, and so he plunged into them. His only rule was not to be
misled by the spelling. That was no guide anyhow. He avoided every
recognised phrase in the language and mispronounced everything in
order that he shouldn't be suspected of ignorance, but whim.
"Sesquippledan," he would say. "Sesquippledan verboojuice."
"Eh?" said Platt.
"Eloquent Rapsodooce."
"Where?" asked Platt.
"In the warehouse, O' Man. All among the table-cloths and blankets.
Carlyle. He's reading aloud. Doing the High Froth. Spuming!
Windmilling! Waw, waw! It's a sight worth seeing. He'll bark his
blessed knuckles one of these days on the fixtures, O' Man."
He held an imaginary book in one hand and waved an eloquent gesture.
"So too shall every Hero inasmuch as notwithstanding for evermore come
back to Reality," he parodied the enthusiastic Parsons, "so that in
fashion and thereby, upon things and not _under_ things
articulariously He stands."
"I should laugh if the Governor dropped on him," said Platt. "He'd
never hear him coming."
"The O' Man's drunk with it--fair drunk," said Polly. "I never did.
It's worse than when he got on to Raboloose."
