rding Percycross utterly, forgetful of all the boots and
aristocrats' accounts, regardless almost of the Cheshire Cheese, not
even meditating a new speech in defence of the Rights of Labour. He
believed that on that day he had gained the great victory. If so,
life before him was one vista of triumph. That he himself was what
the world calls romantic, he had no idea,--but he had lived now for
months on the conviction that the only chance of personal happiness
to himself was to come from the smiles and kindness and love of a
certain human being whom he had chosen to beatify. To him Polly
Neefit was divine, and round him also there would be a halo of
divinity if this goddess would consent to say that she would become
his wife.

It was impossible that many days should be allowed to pass before he
made an effort to learn from her own lips, positively, the meaning
of those last words which she had spoken to him. But there was
a difficulty. Neefit had warned him from the house, and he felt
unwilling to knock at the door of a man in that man's absence, who,
if present, would have refused to him the privilege of admittance.
That Mrs. Neefit would see him, and afford him opportunity of
pleading his cause with Polly, he did not doubt;--but some idea that
a man's house, being his castle, should not be invaded in the owner's
absence, restrained him. That the man's daughter might be the dearer
and the choicer, and the more sacred castle of the two, was true
enough; but then Polly was a castle which, as Moggs thought, ought to
belong to him rather than to her father. And so he resolved to waylay
Polly.

His weekdays, from nine in the morning till seven in the evening,
were at this time due to Booby and Moggs, and he was at present
paying that debt religiously, under a conviction that his various
absences at Percycross had been hard upon his father. For there was,
in truth, no Booby. Moggs senior, and Moggs junior, constituted the
whole firm;--in which, indeed, up to this moment Moggs junior had no
recognised share,--and if one was absent, the other must be present.
But Sunday was his own, and Polly Neefit always went to church.
Nevertheless, on the first Sunday he failed. He failed, though he saw
her, walking with two other ladies, and though, to the best of his
judgment, she also saw him. On the second Sunday he was at Hendon
from ten till three, hanging about in the lanes, sitting on gates,
whiling away the time with a treatise o