"Lor, you _are_ a Treat!" said cousin Annie, and screamed with
laughter at a delicious idea. "You'll get the Chuck," she said.

Mr. Polly made a convulsing grimace at her.

"I'll die!" she said. "I don't believe you care a bit!"

Feeling a little disorganized by her hilarity and a shocked expression
that had come to the face of cousin Miriam, he made some indistinct
excuse and went out through the back room and scullery into the little
garden. The cool air and a very slight drizzle of rain was a
relief--anyhow. But the black mood of the replete dyspeptic had come
upon him. His soul darkened hopelessly. He walked with his hands in
his pockets down the path between the rows of exceptionally cultured
peas and unreasonably, overwhelmingly, he was smitten by sorrow for
his father. The heady noise and muddle and confused excitement of the
feast passed from him like a curtain drawn away. He thought of that
hot and angry and struggling creature who had tugged and sworn so
foolishly at the sofa upon the twisted staircase, and who was now
lying still and hidden, at the bottom of a wall-sided oblong pit
beside the heaped gravel that would presently cover him. The stillness
of it! the wonder of it! the infinite reproach! Hatred for all these
people--all of them--possessed Mr. Polly's soul.

"Hen-witted gigglers," said Mr. Polly.

He went down to the fence, and stood with his hands on it staring away
at nothing. He stayed there for what seemed a long time. From the
house came a sound of raised voices that subsided, and then Mrs.
Johnson calling for Bessie.