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THE SIEGE
69

"A fat lot you kids learn at school," said the red-nosed man with some heat.

"They didn't teach us those sort of things," said Pollyooly simply.

"What time does 'e come 'ome?" said the red-nosed man.

"Late at night, very late at night," said Pollyooly truthfully.

The respectable, but red-nosed, man gazed at her gloomily for a minute, then he turned on his heel and went slowly down the stairs.

Pollyooly ran to Mr. Gedge-Tomkins' sitting-room window and watched him leave the building and the Inner Temple. She thought it well to let the Honorable John Ruffin know at once that the tardy besieger had at last come, and, taking the Lump, she went across to the Law Courts, induced the door-keeper of Court No. IV, in which he practised, to summon him forth, and informed him of the danger. He thanked her, and bade her be ready to signal to him at a quarter past four, if the red-faced man was waiting to pounce on him. He went back into the Court, and after finishing her work in Mr. Gedge-Tomkins' chambers, she took the Lump to the gar-