"But Pompey couldn"t forget his early love as quickly as he wished to, and often of an evening, when he knew that Mr Polypus was away at some of his gluttonous carousals, Pompey would steal to the window of her house and keek in through the c.h.i.n.ks of the shutters, and sigh to see his beloved Peggy sitting all so lonely by herself at the little table, on which the phosphorus lamp was burning. And at the same time-- although Pompey did not know it--Peggy would be gazing so sadly into the pota.s.sium fire, and thinking of him; she really could not help it, although she knew it was wrong, and poor pretty Mrs Polypus couldn"t be expected to be very cheery, could she?
"Well, one night she was sitting all alone like that, wondering what was keeping her husband so long, and if he would beat her, as usual, when he did come home. She hadn"t had a bit to eat for many, many hours, and was just beginning to feel hungry and faint, when a tiny wee fish swam in by the chimney, and pop! Mrs Polypus had it down her throat in a twinkling; but as ill-luck would have it, who should return at the very moment but her wicked husband. He had evidently been eating even more than usual, and looked both flushed and angry.
""_Now_, Mrs Polypus," he began, "I saw that. How dared you, when you knew I was coming home to supper, and there wasn"t a morsel in the larder?"
""Oh! please, Peterie," said poor little Mrs Polypus, beginning to cry, "I really didn"t mean to; but I was _so_ hungry, and--"
""Hungry?" roared the husband; "how dared you to be hungry?--how dared you be anything at all, in fact? But there, I shall not irritate myself by talking to you. Bring it back again."
""Oh! if you please, Peterie--" cried Mrs Polypus.
""Bring it back again, I say," cried Mr Polypus, making all his arms swing round and round like a wheel, till you could hardly have seen one of them, and finally crossing them on his chest; and, leaning on the back of the chair, he looked sternly down on his spouse, and said--"Disgorge at once!"
""I won"t, then, and, what is more, I shan"t; there!" said the wee woman, for even a woman as well as a worm will turn when very much trodden upon.
""Good gracious me!" cried Mr Polypus, fairly aghast with astonishment; "does--she--actually--dare--to--defy me?" but "Ho! ho!" he added, likewise "He! he!" and "we"ll see;" and he strode to the window and bolted it, and strode to the door and bolted that; then he took the phosphorus lamp and extinguished it.
""It"ll be so dark, Peterie," said his wife, beginning to be frightened.
""There is light enough for what I have to do," said Peterie, sternly.
Then he opened a great yawning mouth, and he seized her first by one arm, and then by another, until he had the whole within his grasp, and she all the time kicking with her one leg, and screaming--
""Oh! please don"t, Peterie. Oh! Peterie, don"t."
"But he heeded not her cries, which every moment became weaker and more far-away like, until they ceased entirely, and the unhappy Mrs Polypus was nowhere to be seen. _Her husband had swallowed her alive_!
"As soon as he had done so he sat down by the fire, looking rather swollen, and feeling big and not altogether comfortable; but how could he expect to be, after swallowing his wife? He leaned his head on three arms and gazed pensively into the fire.
""After all," he said to himself, "I may have been just a little too hasty, for she wasn"t at all a bad little woman, taking her all-in-all.
Heigho! I fear I"ll never see her like again."
"Hark! a loud knocking at the door. He starts and listens, and trembles like the guilty thing he is. The knocking was repeated in one continuous stream of rat-tats.
""Hullo! Peterie," cried a voice; "open the door."
""Who is there?" asked Peterie at last.
""Why, man, it is I--Pota.s.sium Pompey. Whatever is up with you to-day that you are barred and bolted like this? Afraid of thieves? Eh?"
""No," said Peterie, undoing the fastenings and letting Pompey come in; "it isn"t that exactly. The fact is, I wasn"t feeling very well, and just thought I would lie down for a little while."
""You don"t look very ill, anyhow," said Pompey; "and you are actually getting stouter, I think!"
""Well," replied Peterie, "you see, I"ve been out fishing, and had a good dinner, and perhaps I"ve eaten rather more, I believe, than is good for me."
""Shouldn"t wonder," said Pompey, sarcastically; for the truth is, he had been keeking through the c.h.i.n.ks of the shutters, and had seen the whole tragedy.
""A decided case of dropsy, I should think," added Pompey.
"Peterie groaned.
""Take a seat," he said to Pompey. "I believe you are my friend, and I want to have a little talk with you; I--I want to make a clean breast of it."
""Well, I"m all attention," replied Pompey--"all ears, as the donkey said."
""Fact is, then," continued Peterie, "I"ve been a rather unhappy man of late, and my wife and I never understood one another, and never agreed.
She was in love with some scoundrel, you know, before we were married-- leastways, so they tell me--and I--I"m really afraid I"ve swallowed her, Pompey."
""Hum!" said Pompey; "and does she agree any better with you now?"
""No," replied Peterie, "that"s just the thing; she"s living all the wrong way, somehow, and I fear she won"t digest."
""Wretch!" cried Peterie, starting to his feet, "behold me. Gaze upon this wasted form: I am he who loved poor Peggy before her fatal marriage. Oh! my Peggy, my loved, my lost, my half-digested Peggy, shall we never meet again?"
""Sooner," cried Peterie, "perhaps than you are aware of. So it was you who loved my silly wife?"
""It was I."
""Wretch, you shall die."
""Never," roared Pompey, "while I live."
""We shall see," said Peterie.
""Come on," said Pompey, "set the table on one side and give us room."
"That was a fearful fight that battle of the polyps. It is awful enough to see two men fighting who have only two arms a side, but when it comes to twenty arms each, and all these arms are whirling round at once, like a select a.s.sortment of windmills that have run mad, then, I can tell you, it is very much more dreadful. Now Peterie has the advantage.
"Now Pompey is down.
"Now he is up again and Peterie falls.
"Now Peterie half swallows Pompey.
"Now Pompey appears again as large as life, and half swallows Peterie; but at last, by one unlucky blow administered by ten fists at once, down rolls Pota.s.sium Pompey lifeless on Peterie"s floor. Peterie bent over the body of Pompey.
""Bad job," he mutters, "he is dead. And the question comes to be, what shall I do with the body? Ha! happy thought! the struggle has given me an appet.i.te, _I"ll swallow him too_."
"Barely had he thus disposed of poor Pompey"s body, when a renewed knocking was heard at the outside door. There was not a moment to lose; so Peterie hastily set the furniture in order, and bustled away to open the door, and hardly had he done so when in rushed an excited mob of polyps headed by two warlike policemen, who _headed_ them by keeping well in the rear, but being, after the manner of policemen, very loud in their talk.
""Where is Pota.s.sium Pompey?" cried one; and--
""Ay! where is Pota.s.sium Pompey?" cried another; and--
""To be sure, where is Pota.s.sium Pompey?" cried a third; and--
""That is the question, young man," cried both policemen at once.