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THE SIEGE
93

siege is wearing you out, that you are on the way to a nervous breakdown."

"Oh, I don't mind it at all, sir," said Pollyooly cheerfully. "I like it."

"So much excitement is bad for one so young," he said sententiously; and he departed gaily by the Tudor Street entrance.

Pollyooly put their dinner into Mr. Gedge-Tomkins' kitchen, and took the Lump to the Embankment Gardens for fresh air and exercise. It was well that she had taken precautions; for on her return she found the red-nosed man at his post. With an air of contemptuous dignity, Pollyooly led the Lump past him into Mr. Gedge-Tomkins' chambers.

The red-nosed besieger gazed at the closed door with a bitter scowl. He had waited for an hour in the Law Courts with a money-lender who as he waxed more and more impatient at the waste of a morning he would fain have spent fleecing the high-spirited youth of his adopted country, had waxed more and more bitter in his criticism of the incompetence of the salaried instruments of the Law.

Before he lost hope that the Honorable John