“I dived in and got it.”
“You never ... you princess ... you!”
“I just bin and come straight here with it.”
She opened and shut the mackintosh quickly, displaying for a brief glance her little white naked figure with the slightest tremulous crook at the sharp knees.
“Ah, my darling,” exclaimed the enraptured barber, “and you’re shivering with not a rag on you but them shoes ... run away home, Polly, and get some things on, Polly ... and ... Polly, Polly!” as she darted away, “come back quick, won’t you?”
She nodded brightly back at him as she sprang through the doorway. He went to the entrance and watched her taking her twinkling leaps, as bonny as a young foal, along the pavement.
And there came into the barber’s mind the notion that this was all again a piece of fancy tricks; but there was the dark pot, and he examined it. Thoughtfully he took it into his backyard and busied himself there for a while, not telling his daughters of its recovery. When, later, Polly joined him in the garden he had already raised a big fire in an old iron brazier which had lain there.
“Ah, Polly my dear, I’m overjoyed to get it back, but I dasn’t keep it ... it’s a bad thing. Take it in your fingers now, my dear little girl, and just chuck it in that fire. Ah, we must melt the wickedness out of it,” he said, observing her disappointment, “it’s been the death of three men and we dasn’t keep it.”
They watched it among the coals until it had begun to perish drop by drop through the grating of the brazier.
Later in the day Mr. Piffingcap drove Polly in a little trap to a neighbouring town to see a circus, and the pair of them had a roaring dinner at the Green Dragon. Next morning when Polly brought the milk to the saloon there were Timmy James and Gregory Barnes being shaved, for beards had grown again in Bagwood.