the same street thereof, during August. Thus it
happened to Denry and to Ruth Earp. There had been difficulties--there
always are. A business man who lives by collecting weekly rents
obviously cannot go away for an indefinite period. And a young woman who
lives alone in the world is bound to respect public opinion. However,
Ruth arranged that her girlish friend, Nellie Cotterill, who had
generous parents, should accompany her. And the North Staffordshire
Railway's philanthropic scheme of issuing four-shilling tourist return
tickets to the seaside enabled Denry to persuade himself that he was not
absolutely mad in contemplating a fortnight on the shores of England.

Ruth chose Llandudno, Llandudno being more stylish than either Rhyl or
Blackpool, and not dearer. Ruth and Nellie had a double room in a
boarding-house, No. 26 St Asaph's Road (off the Marine Parade), and
Denry had a small single room in another boarding-house, No. 28 St
Asaph's Road. The ideal could scarcely have been approached more nearly.

Denry had never seen the sea before. As, in his gayest clothes, he
strolled along the esplanade or on the pier between those two girls in
their gayest clothes, and mingled with the immense crowd of
pleasure-seekers and money-spenders, he was undoubtedly much impressed
by the beauty and grandeur of the sea. But what impressed him far more
than the beauty and grandeur of the sea was the field for profitable
commercial enterprise which a place like Llandudno presented. He had not
only his first vision of the sea, but his first genuine vision of the
possibilities of amassing wealth by honest ingenuity. On the morning
after his arrival he went out for a walk and lost himself near the Great
Orme, and had to return hurriedly along the whole length of the Parade
about nine o'clock. And through every ground-floor window of every house
he saw a long table full of people eating and drinking the same kinds of
food. In Llandudno fifty thousand souls desired always to perform the
same act at the same time; they wanted to be distracted and they would
do anything for the sake of distraction, and would pay for the
privilege. And they would all pay at once.

This great thought was more majestic to him than the sea, or the Great
Orme, or the Little Orme.

It stuck in his head because he had suddenly grown into a very serious
person. He had now something to live for, something on which to lavish
his energy. He was happy in being affian