I'm old enough to look
after myself, and if I ain't I never shall be; so there."

This did not satisfy Mr. Sparkes. He saw that the watch and chain were
certainly valuable, and he could not imagine how the girl had become
honourably possessed of them, save as the gift of an admirer; but the
mere fact of such an admirer's exacting secrecy implied a situation of
danger.

"I don't like the look of it, Polly," he remarked; with a nervous
attempt to be severe.

"All right, dad; then don't like the look of it. The watch is good
enough for me."

It took Mr. Sparkes two or three minutes to understand this joke.
Whilst he was reflecting upon it a thought suddenly passed through his
mind, which startled him by its suggestiveness.

"Polly!"

"Well?"

"It ain't your Uncle Clover, is it?"

The girl laughed loudly as if at a preposterous question.

"Him? Why, I've as good as forgot there was such a man! What do you
mean? Why, I shouldn't know him if I saw him. What made you think of
that?"

"Oh, I don't know. Who knows when and where he may turn up, or what
he'll do?"

"That's a good 'un! My Uncle Clover indeed! Whatever put that into your
'ead?"

Her ejaculations of wonder and disdain continued until the close of the
interview, and Mr. Sparkes went his way, convinced that Polly was being
pursued by some wealthy man, probably quite unprincipled--the kind of
man who frequents "proper rest'rants" and sits in the stalls at
"theaytres," where, doubtless, Polly had made his acquaintance. After
brooding a day or two on this idea he procured a sheet of the cheapest
note-paper and sat down in his bedroom, high up at Chaffey's, to
compose a letter for his daughter's behoof.

"DEAR POLLY,

"I write you these few lines to say that the more I think about you and
your way of carrying on the less I like the look of it, and the sooner
I make that plain to you the better for both of us, and I'm sure you'll
think the same. You are that strong-headed, my girl; but listen to the
warnings of experience, who have seen a great deal of the wicked world,
and cannot hope to see much more of it at my present age. There will
come a day when you will wish that you could hear of me by a note to
Chaffey's, but such will not be. Before it's too late I take up the pen
to say these few words, which is this: I have always been a respectable
and a saving man, which I hope to be until I am no more. What I mean to
say is this, Chaffey's is not wha