"
There was more conversation, which ended in Denry's repeating, with
sympathetic resignation:
"No, you'll have to get out. It's bailiffs."
Immediately afterwards he left the residence with a bright filial smile.
And then, in two minutes, he popped his cheerful head in at the door
again.
"Look here, mother," he said, "I'll lend you half-a-crown if you like."
Charity beamed on his face, and genuinely warmed his heart.
"But you must pay me something for the accommodation," he added. "I
can't do it for nothing. You must pay me back next week and give me
threepence. That's fair. I couldn't bear to see you turned out of your
house. Now get your rent-book."
And he marked half-a-crown as paid in her greasy, dirty rent-book, and
the same in his large book.
"Eh, you're a queer 'un, Mester Machin!" murmured the old woman as he
left. He never knew precisely what she meant. Fifteen--twenty--years
later in his career her intonation of that phrase would recur to him and
puzzle him.
On the following Monday everybody in Chapel Alley and Carpenter's Square
seemed to know that the inconvenience of bailiffs and eviction could be
avoided by arrangement with Denry the philanthropist.
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