“I should charge you quite a lot for it,” she said,—“much as a dollar perhaps; for you know writing verses is quite an accomplishment.” 167
“I’ll pay a dollar a line for it! I know a fellow that gets more than that from the magazines. And I’m sure that it will be good if you do it.”
“My gracious! that’s great pay!” cried Polly, with sparkling eyes, ignoring the compliment, but enchanted to hear what a price verses brought. “I’ll send it to you by mail.”
“No, I guess I’ll look in every once in a while and see how you’re getting on!”
“Dear me!” said Polly, “you don’t expect me to spend a week over it, do you? That isn’t why you offered such high pay?”
“Oh, no; the quicker you got it done the more I should be willing to pay for it.” He paused a moment. “And, Miss Fitch,” he went on, “I don’t care if you make it a little,—well,—a little soft. She deserves it, she’s such a tease! Her name’s Beatrice,” he added. “We call her Trix, if that’ll help you any.”
Polly understood Mr. Reginald perfectly, and she dismissed him with a twinkle which promised well. Then Polly 168 proceeded to cudgel her brain, while the needle went in and out, and a buttonhole formed itself in the firm, narrow line that makes of a buttonhole a work of art.
“I wish I could rhyme words as well as I can stitches,” Polly thought to herself, as she held up a completed buttonhole, with the honest pride of a good workman. “Sixes,—Trixes! that heart were Trix’s! That ought to be made to go. A double rhyme, too! I don’t believe he expects a double rhyme.” And in and out and in and out her thoughts plied themselves round and about the two words, and her cheeks got quite hot with the pleasurable excitement of this new mental exercise.
At last she tossed down her work, and, fetching a piece of brown wrapping-paper, proceeded, with many erasures and tinkerings, to inscribe upon it the following verse:
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Were hearts the dice and love the game, Of no avail were double sixes; On every heart is but one name, We nought could throw but double-Trixes! |