CHAPTER VII.
POLLYOOLY PLAYS THE GOOD SAMARITAN Mr.Wilkinson had departed, a sadder but very little wiser man, and taken his detective with him; Mrs.Brown had been thanked, paid, and dismissed; and Pollyooly, having sufficiently fondled and kissed the irresponsive but unresisting Lump, went into the kitchen and set about getting ready the Honourable John Ruffin's tea.
She had lighted the gas under the kettle and taken the bread and butter from the cupboard, when he came into the kitchen, wearing an air of the most earnest purpose, and said impressively: "Genius, Pollyooly--genius is the art of taking infinite pains." "Yes, sir," said Pollyooly politely.
"That is why you are unsurpassed in the art of grilling bacon; you take infinite pains with it," he went on with the same earnestness.
"Yes, sir," said Pollyooly with more understanding.
"And now I am going to instruct you in the art of making tea," he said proudly.

"I only learned yesterday that it was an art.

Till then I believed that you merely poured boiling water on tea, and there you were.

I have learned that it is not so.

Also I have learned that that vegetable which comes from India and Ceylon, and is called tea by those who sell it, is not really tea at all.