“I do; and what’s more—­I’ll pay the damage.  Go up, Mrs. Bubb, and just say what I told you; and let’s see how she takes it.”

Mrs. Clover began a faint objection, but Mrs. Bubb did not heed it.  Her face set in the joy of battle, she turned from the room and ran upstairs.

CHAPTER X

THE STORMING OF THE FORT

Mr. and Mrs. Cheeseman squeezed together at their partly-open door, were following the course of events with a delighted eagerness which threatened to break all bounds of discretion.  Their grinning faces signalled to Mrs. Bubb as she went by, and she, no less animated, waved a hand to them as if promising richer entertainment.  The next minute she was heard parleying with Miss Sparkes.  Polly received her, as was to be expected, with acrimonious defiance.

“Oh, it’s you, is it, Mrs. Bubb!  Go and clean up your dirty kitchen.  It’ll take you all your time.”

There needed but this to fire the landlady to extremities.  Her answer rang through the house.  Dirty kitchen, indeed!  And how many meals had Miss Sparkes eaten there at cost price—­aye, often for nothing at all!  And who was it as made most dirt, coming in at all hours of the day and night from running about the streets?

“Very well, my lady!  Are you going to turn that key or not?  That’s all I want to know.”

“I’ll have pity on your ignorance,” replied Polly, “and tell you more than that.  I’m going to bed, and going to try to get to sleep if there’s any chance of it in a ’ouse like this, which might be a ’sylum for inebriates.”

Mrs. Bubb laughed, the strangest laugh ever heard from her respectable lips.  Words were needless, and in a few seconds she panted before her friends downstairs.

“She says she’s a-goin’ to bed.  Of all the shimeless creatures!  Called me every nime she could turn her tongue to!  And wouldn’t open her door not if the ’ouse was burning.  Do you hear her?”

Mr. Gammon buttoned his coat from top to bottom, smoothed his moustache and his side-whiskers, and had the air of a man who is in readiness for stern duty.

“I want both of you to come up with me,” he said quietly.

Mrs. Clover began to look alarmed, even embarrassed.

“But perhaps she’s really gone to bed.”

“All right, she shall have time,” he nodded, laughing.  “I want both of you to come up to see fair play.”

“But, Mr. Gammon, I shouldn’t like—­”

“Mrs. Clover, you’ve come here to see Polly, and you’ve a right to see Polly, and by jorrocks you shall see Polly!  Follow me upstairs.  I’ve said all that need be said; now to business.”

They ascended; Gammon three steps at a stride, the others in a hurry and a flutter.  Light streamed from the Cheesemans’ room; the first-floor lodgers; incapable any longer of self-restraint, were out on the landing.  On the next floor it was dark, but Mr. Gammon saw a gleam along the bottom of Polly’s door.  He knocked—­the knock of a policeman armed with a warrant.