"I wish you would let me teach you."
"I don't want to learn, and I doubt whether you'd make a good master. I really must go back now, Mr. Moggs. I came out because mother said I'd better. I don't know that it could do any good if we were to walk on to Edgeware." And so saying, Polly turned back.
He walked beside her half the way home in silence, thinking that if he could only choose the proper words and the proper tone he might yet prevail; but feeling that the proper words and the proper tone were altogether out of his reach. On those favourite subjects, the ballot, or the power of strikes, he could always find the proper words and the proper tone when he rose upon his legs at the Cheshire Cheese;—and yet, much as he loved the ballot, he loved Polly Neefit infinitely more dearly. When at the Cheshire Cheese he was a man; but now, walking with the girl of his heart, he felt himself to be a bootmaker, and the smell of the leather depressed him. It was evident that she would walk the whole way home in silence, if he would permit it. The railway station was already again in sight, when he stopped her on the pathway, and made one more attempt. "You believe me, when I say that I love you?"
"I don't know, Mr. Moggs."
"Oh, Polly, you don't know!"
"But it doesn't signify,—not the least. I ain't bound to take a man because he loves me."
"You won't take Mr. Newton;—will you?"
"I don't know. I won't say anything about it. Mr. Newton is nothing to you." Then there was a pause. "If you think, Mr. Moggs, that you can recommend yourself to a young woman by such tantrums as there were going on last night, you are very much mistaken. That's not the way to win me."
"I wish I knew which was the way."
"Mr. Newton never said a word."