"Beauty!" said Mrs. Polly at last to a tremendous silence, picking up
and dusting the rejected headdress. "Tantrums," she added. "I 'aven't
patience." And moving with the slow reluctance of a deeply offended
woman, she began to pile together the simple apparatus of their recent
meal, for transportation to the scullery sink.

The repast she had prepared for him did not seem to her to justify his
ingratitude. There had been the cold pork from Sunday and some nice
cold potatoes, and Rashdall's Mixed Pickles, of which he was
inordinately fond. He had eaten three gherkins, two onions, a small
cauliflower head and several capers with every appearance of appetite,
and indeed with avidity; and then there had been cold suet pudding to
follow, with treacle, and then a nice bit of cheese. It was the pale,
hard sort of cheese he liked; red cheese he declared was indigestible.
He had also had three big slices of greyish baker's bread, and had
drunk the best part of the jugful of beer.... But there seems to be no
pleasing some people.

"Tantrums!" said Mrs. Polly at the sink, struggling with the mustard
on his plate and expressing the only solution of the problem that
occurred to her.

And Mr. Polly sat on the stile and hated the whole scheme of
life--which was at once excessive and inadequate as a solution. He
hated Foxbourne, he hated Foxbourne High Street, he hated his shop and
his wife and his neighbours--every blessed neighbour--and with
indescribable bitterness he hated himself.

"Why did I ever get in this silly Hole?" he said. "Why did I ever?"