She shook her head. “I shall get a cat first,” she said. “You never mean anything you say.”
“Might get ’em together,” said Mr. Polly, with his sense of a neat thing outrunning his discretion.
“Why! ’ow d’you mean?” said Minnie, suddenly alert.
“Shop and cat thrown in,” said Mr. Polly in spite of himself, and his head swam and he broke out into a cold sweat as he said it.
He found her eyes fixed on him with an eager expression. “Mean to say—” she began as if for verification. He sprang to his feet, and turned to the window. “Little dog!” he said, and moved doorward hastily. “Eating my bicycle tire, I believe,” he explained. And so escaped.
He saw his bicycle in the hall and cut it dead.
He heard Mrs. Larkins in the passage behind him as he opened the front door.
He turned to her. “Thought my bicycle was on fire,” he said. “Outside. Funny fancy! All right, reely. Little dog outside.... Miriam ready?”
“What for?”
“To go and meet Annie.”