Well, the old chap said no word, but turned about then and there, and back along the quay like a man in a dream.  All the way he kept fumbling the document without daring to open it, and when he reached his own door he just sat down on the little low wall outside, laid the cursed thing on his knee, pulled a bandanna out of his breeches pocket, and polished the top of his poor head till it fairly blazed in the eye of the sun.

He was sitting there, dazed and quiet, when the door opened and out came Mary Polly with a rag-mat in her hand, meaning to bang it against the wall, as her custom was.

“Hullo!” says she, stopping short on the threshold.  “Back again, like a bad penny?”

“Bad enough, this time,” says her husband, without turning round; and drops his head with a groan.

I must say the woman’s behaviour was peculiar.  For first of all she stepped forward and gave his head a stroking, just as you might a child’s, and then she looks up and down the street, and says, “I’m ashamed of ‘ee, carryin’ on like this for all the public to see.  Stick your hands in your pockets,” says she.

“What’s the use of that?” But he did it.

“Now whistle.”

“Eh?”

“Whistle a tune.”

“But I can’t.”

“You can if you try; I’ve heard you whistlin’ ‘Rule Britannia’ scores of times, or bits of it.  Now I’m goin’ to beat this mat and make believe to be talkin’ to ’ee.  At the very first sound old Mrs. Scantlebury’ll poke her head out, she always does.  So you go on whistlin’, and don’t mind anything I say.  There’ll be no peace in life for us after she gets wind you’ve been sacked; and just now I want a little time to myself to relieve my feelin’s.”

So Jacka started to whistle, feeling mighty shy, and Mary Polly picked up the mat.

“I wish,” says she to the mat, “you was Mr. (whang) Zephaniah (whang) Job (whang).  I do dearly wish for my life you was Mr. (whang) Zephaniah (whang) Job (whang).  I’d take your ugly old head with its stivery grey whiskers and I’d (bang, whang)—­I’d (bang, whang)—­I’d treat you like this here mat, and lay you down for folks to wipe their shoes upon, Mr. (whang) Zephaniah (whang) Job (whang).”

“When Britain first at Heaven’s command,” whistled Jacka; and the Widow Scantlebury, two doors up the street, was properly taken in.  An hour later, when the news of Jacka’s dismissal was all over the town, she had to sit down and consider.  “I see’d him come up the street”—­this was how she told the story, being the sort of woman that never knows where the truth ends—­“just as Mary Polly was shaking out her mat.  He came up like a whipped dog, stuck his hands in his pockets and started to whistle, for all the world like a whipped dog, you understand?  Any fool could see the man had something on his mind and wanted to break it gentle.  But not she!  Went on banging the mat, if you’ll believe me, till my flesh ached to see a woman so dull-minded.  Of course it wasn’ no business of mine, tho’ you would think, after living with a man thirty years—­” and so on, and so on.