She
accepted his offerings, mimicked his faulty speech, and was continually
hauling him up the precipice of self-distrust, only to let him slip back
as soon as he reached the top.
One day Purdy entered the kitchen doubled up with laughter. In passing
the front of the house he had thrown a look in at the parlour-window;
and the sight of the prim and proper Hempel on his knees on the woolly
hearthrug so tickled his sense of humour that, having spluttered out the
news, back he went to the passage, where he crouched down before the
parlour-door and glued his eye to the keyhole.
"Oh, Purdy, no! What if the door should suddenly fly open?"
But there was something in Purdy's pranks that a laughter-lover like
Polly could never for long withstand. Here, now, in feigning to imitate
the unfortunate Hempel, he was sheerly irresistible. He clapped his
hands to his heart, showed the whites of his eyes, wept, gesticulated
and tore his hair; and Polly, after trying in vain to keep a straight
face, sat down and went off into a fit of stifled mirth--and when Polly
did give way, she was apt to set every one round her laughing, too.
Ellen's shoulders shook; she held a fist to her mouth. Even little
Trotty shrilled out her tinny treble, without knowing in the least what
the joke was.
When the merriment was at its height, the front door opened and in
walked Mahony. An instant's blank amazement, and he had grasped the
whole situation--Richard was always so fearfully quick at
understanding, thought Polly ruefully.
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