(In Collaboration with EDWARD KNOBLOCK)

MILESTONES
LONDON LIFE

THE CARD

A STORY OF ADVENTURE
IN THE FIVE TOWNS

BY

ARNOLD BENNETT

_First Published (Crown 8vo), February 23rd, 1911_

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

CONTENTS

I. THE DANCE 7

II. THE WIDOW HULLINS'S HOUSE 27

III. THE PANTECHNICON 48

IV. WRECKING OF A LIFE 71

V. THE MERCANTILE MARINE 89

VI. HIS BURGLARY 112

VII. THE RESCUER OF DAMES 132

VIII. RAISING A WIGWAM 153

IX. THE GREAT NEWSPAPER WAR 177

X. HIS INFAMY 196

XI. IN THE ALPS 218

XII. THE SUPREME HONOUR 240

THE CARD

CHAPTER I

THE DANCE

I

Edward Henry Machin first saw the smoke on the 27th May 1867, in
Brougham Street, Bursley, the most ancient of the Five Towns. Brougham
Street runs down from St Luke's Square straight into the Shropshire
Union Canal, land consists partly of buildings known as "potbanks"
(until they come to be sold by auction, when auctioneers describe them
as "extensive earthenware manufactories") and partly of cottages whose
highest rent is four-and-six a week. In such surroundings was an
extraordinary man born. He was the only anxiety of a widowed mother, who
gained her livelihood and his by making up "ladies' own materials" in
ladies' own houses. Mrs Machin, however, had a speciality apart from her
vocation: she could wash flannel with less shrinking than any other
woman in the district, and she could wash fine lace without ruining it;
thus often she came to sew and remained to wash. A somewhat gloomy
woman; thin, with a tongue! But I liked her. She saved a certain amount
of time every day by addressing her son as Denry, instead of Edward
Henry.

Not intellectual, not industrious, Denry would have maintained the
average dignity of labour on a potbank had he not at the age of twelve
won a scholarship from the Board School to the Endowed School. He owed
his triumph to audacity rather than learning, and to chance rather than
design. On the second day of the examination he happened to arrive in
the examination-room ten minutes too soon for the afternoon sitting. He
wandered about the place exercising his curiosity, and reached the
master's desk. On the desk was a tabulated form with names of candidates
and the number of marks achieved by each in each subject of the previous
day. He had done badly in geography, and saw seven marks against his
name, in the geographical column, out of a possible thirty. The figu