The Card, a Story of Adventure in the Five Towns

erty, stood by itself in Chapel Alley, behind the Wesleyan chapel; the majority of the tenements were in Carpenter's Square, near to. The neighbourhood was not distinguished for its social

on its adjacency to the Wesleyan chapel, as though that was the Wesleyan

a table, one or two saucepans, and some antique crockery. What lay at the upper end of the stairway no living person knew, save the old woman who slept there. The old woman sat at the fireplace, "all bunched up," as they say in the Five Towns. The only fire in the room, however, was in the short clay pipe which she smoked; Mrs Hullins was one of the last old women in Bursley to smoke a cutty; and even then the pipe was considered coarse, and cigarettes were coming into fashion-though not in Chapel Alley. Mrs Hullins smoked her pipe, and thought about not

with his bright, optimistic face under his fair brown hair. H

ed Mrs Hullins, and sat

t unit, master of his own time and his own movements! In brief, a man! The truth was that he earned now in two days a week slightly more than Mr Duncalf paid him for the labour of five and a half days. His income, as collector of rents and manager of estates large or small, totalled about a poun

," said the old w

n't do," said Denry. "Hav

tobacco, and refilled her pi

use without half-a-crown at a

the stuffy residence, but the old woman never shivered. She was one of those o

ooking facts in the face. "I've told you about my son Jack. He's been playin

" said Denry, c

arrears from anybody, that she could not afford to stand any further increase of arrears, that her tenants were ruini

ve I been i' this 'ere

Denry. "And look at

ss that he invited her attention to what s

to keep you," said De

Hullins, "and them as is alive ha

iliffs," said Denry,

Ye'll none

an, and I've given you a pinch of tobacco. Besides, you oughtn

hich ended in Denry's repeatin

ve to get out.

a bright filial smile. And then, in two minutes,

said, "I'll lend you h

is face, and genuin

for nothing. You must pay me back next week and give me threepence. That's fai

id in her greasy, dirty rent-boo

t. He never knew precisely what she meant. Fifteen-twenty-years later in

for rent and refuse to mark it as rent, appropriating it to his loans, so that the fear of bailiffs was upon them again. Thus, as the good genius of Chapel Alley and Carpenter's Square, saving the distressed from the rigours of the open street, rescuing the needy from their tightest corners, keeping many a home together when but for him it would have fallen to pieces-always smiling, jolly, sympathetic, and picturesque-Denry at length employed the five-pound note won from Harold Etches. A five-pound note- especially a new and crisp one

brilliant. But he considered himself peculiarly gifted. He cons

kled down to Duncalf and remain

g to the ball and asking the Countess to da

the idea of taking his re

th the rent-collecting? It's simple enough! It's just what they

s that most admired type in the bu