the two in one person! And _didn't_ I fall between
two stools! Oh dear, _didn't_ I? Oh, I fell between the two stools
beautifully, beautifully! And _then_--she nearly set the stools on
top of me. I thought I should never get up again. When I was
physical, she was mental--Bernard Shaw and cold baths for
supper!--and when I was mental she was physical, and threw her arms
round my neck. In the morning, mark you. Always in the morning, when
I was on the alert for business. Yes, invariably. What do you think
of it? Could the devil himself have invented anything more trying?
Oh dear me, don't mention it. Oh, what a time I had! Wonder I'm
alive. Yes, really! Although you smile."

Alvina did more than smile. She laughed outright. And yet she
remained good friends with the odd little man.

He bought himself a new, smart overcoat, that fitted his figure, and
a new velour hat. And she even noticed, one day when he was curling
himself up cosily on the sofa, that he had pale blue silk underwear,
and purple silk suspenders. She wondered where he got them, and how
he afforded them. But there they were.

James seemed for the time being wrapt in his
undertaking--particularly in the takings part of it. He seemed for
the time being contented--or nearly so, nearly so. Certainly there
was money coming in. But then he had to pay off all he had borrowed
to buy his erection and its furnishings, and a bulk of pennies
sublimated into a very small L.s.d. account, at the bank.

The Endeavour was successful--yes, it was successful. But not
overwhelmingly so. On wet nights Woodhouse did not care to trail
down to Lumley. And then Lumley was one of those depressed, negative
spots on the face of the earth which have no pull at all. In that
region of sharp hills with fine hill-brows, and shallow, rather
dreary canal-valleys, it was the places on the hill-brows, like
Woodhouse and Hathersedge and Rapton which flourished, while the
dreary places down along the canals existed only for work-places,
not for life and pleasure. It was just like James to have planted
his endeavour down in the stagnant dust and rust of potteries and
foundries, where no illusion could bloom.

He had dreamed of crowded houses every night, and of raised prices.
But there was no probability of his being able to raise his prices.
He had to figure lower than the Woodhouse Empire. He was second-rate
from the start. His hope now lay in the tramway which was being
built from Knar