m."

"Why," said Denry, "I'll keep on collecting your rents for you if you
like."

"You?"

"I've given him notice to leave," said Denry. "The fact is, Mr Duncalf
and I don't hit it off together."

Another procrastinator arrived in the porch, and, by a singular
simultaneous impulse, Mrs Codleyn and Denry fell into the silence of the
overheard and wandered forth together among the graves.

There, among the graves, she eyed him. He was a clerk at eighteen
shillings a week, and he looked it. His mother was a sempstress, and he
looked it. The idea of neat but shabby Denry and the mighty Duncalf not
hitting it off together seemed excessively comic. If only Denry could
have worn his dress-suit at church! It vexed him exceedingly that he had
only worn that expensive dress-suit once, and saw no faintest hope of
ever being able to wear it again.

"And what's more," Denry pursued, "I'll collect 'em for five per cent,
instead of seven-and-a-half. Give me a free hand, and see if I don't get
better results than _he_ did. And I'll settle accounts every month,
or week if you like, instead of once a quarter, like _he_ does."

The bright and beautiful idea had smitten Denry like some heavenly
arrow. It went through him and pierced Mrs Codleyn with equal success.
It was an idea that appealed to the reason, to the pocket, and to the
instinct of revenge. Having revengefully settled the hash of Mr Duncalf,
they went into church.

No need to continue this part of the narrative. Even the text of the
rector's sermon has no bearing on the issue.

In a week there was a painted board affixed to the door of Denry's
mother:

E.H. MACHIN, _Rent Collector and Estate Agent_.

There was also an advertisement in the _Signal_, announcing that
Denry managed estates large or small.

III

The next crucial event in Denry's career happened one Monday morning, in
a cottage that was very much smaller even than his mother's. This
cottage, part of Mrs Codleyn's multitudinous property, 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 splendour, but existence in it was
picturesque, varied, exciting, full of accidents, as existence is apt to
be in residences that cost their occupiers an average of three shillings
a week. Some persons referred to the quarter as a slum, and ironically
insisted on its adjacency to the