lley, with a
pale-grey dust and spatter from the pottery, and big chimneys
bellying forth black smoke right by the road. Then there was a short
cross-way, up which one saw the iron foundry, a black and rusty
place. A little further on was the railway junction, and beyond
that, more houses stretching to Hathersedge, where the stocking
factories were busy. Compared with Lumley, Woodhouse, whose church
could be seen sticking up proudly and vulgarly on an eminence, above
trees and meadow-slopes, was an idyllic heaven.

Mr. May turned in to the Derby Hotel to have a small whiskey. And of
course he entered into conversation.

"You seem somewhat quiet at Lumley," he said, in his odd,
refined-showman's voice. "Have you _nothing at all_ in the way of
amusement?"

"They all go up to Woodhouse, else to Hathersedge."

"But couldn't you support some place of your own--some _rival_ to
Wright's Variety?"

"Ay--'appen--if somebody started it."

And so it was that James was inoculated with the idea of starting a
cinema on the virgin soil of Lumley. To the women he said not a
word. But on the very first morning that Mr. May broached the
subject, he became a new man. He fluttered like a boy, he fluttered
as if he had just grown wings.

"Let us go down," said Mr. May, "and look at a site. You pledge
yourself to nothing--you don't compromise yourself. You merely have
a site in your mind."

And so it came to pass that, next morning, this oddly assorted
couple went down to Lumley together. James was very shabby, in his
black coat and dark grey trousers, and his cheap grey cap. He bent
forward as he walked, and still nipped along hurriedly, as if
pursued by fate. His face was thin and still handsome. Odd that his
cheap cap, by incongruity, made him look more a gentleman. But it
did. As he walked he glanced alertly hither and thither, and saluted
everybody.

By his side, somewhat tight and tubby, with his chest out and his
head back, went the prim figure of Mr. May, reminding one of a
consequential bird of the smaller species. His plumbago-grey suit
fitted exactly--save that it was perhaps a little tight. The jacket
and waistcoat were bound with silk braid of exactly the same shade
as the cloth. His soft collar, immaculately fresh, had a dark stripe
like his shirt. His boots were black, with grey suede uppers: but a
_little_ down at heel. His dark-grey hat was jaunty. Altogether he
looked very spruce, though a _little_ behind the