-well--moral
support."

"And who put you on to me?" asked Denry.

Mr Myson smiled. "I put myself on to you," said he. "I think I may say
I've got my bearings in the Five Towns, after over a year's journalism
in it, and it appeared to me that you were the best man I could
approach. I always believe in flying high."

Therein was Denry flattered. The visit seemed to him to seal his
position in the district in a way in which his election to the Bursley
Town Council had failed to do. He had been somehow disappointed with
that election. He had desired to display his interest in the serious
welfare of the town, and to answer his opponent's arguments with better
ones. But the burgesses of his ward appeared to have no passionate love
of logic. They just cried "Good old Denry!" and elected him--with a
majority of only forty-one votes. He had expected to feel a different
Denry when he could put "Councillor" before his name. It was not so. He
had been solemnly in the mayoral procession to church, he had attended
meetings of the council, he had been nominated to the Watch Committee.
But he was still precisely the same Denry, though the youngest member of
the council. But now he was being recognised from the outside. Mr
Myson's keen Manchester eye, ranging over the quarter of a million
inhabitants of the Five Towns in search of a representative individual
force, had settled on Denry Machin. Yes, he was flattered. Mr Myson's
choice threw a rose-light on all Denry's career: his wealth and its
origin; his house and stable, which were the astonishment and the
admiration of the town; his Universal Thrift Club; yea, and his
councillorship! After all, these _were_ marvels. (And possibly the
greatest marvel was the resigned presence of his mother in that wondrous
house, and the fact that she consented to employ Rose Chudd, the
incomparable Sappho of charwomen, for three hours every day.)

In fine, he perceived from Mr Myson's eyes that his position was unique.

And after they had chatted a little, and the conversation had deviated
momentarily from journalism to house property, he offered to display
Machin House (as he had christened it) to Mr Myson, and Mr Myson was
really impressed beyond the ordinary. Mr Myson's homage to Mrs Machin,
whom they chanced on in the paradise of the bath-room, was the polished
mirror of courtesy. How Denry wished that he could behave like that when
he happened to meet countesses.

Then, once more in the d