Part 8 (1/2)

”Rose Euclid's got the other half”

At the mention of the naland, Edward Henry excusably started

”Not _the_--?” he exclai out much smoke

”Tellforward, ”where do those ladies get their names from?”

”It happens in this case to be her real name,” said Mr Bryany ”Her father kept a tobacconist's shop in Cheapside The sign was kept up for ed”

”Well, well!” breathed Edward Henry, secretly thrilled by these extraordinary revelations ”And so you and she have got it between you?”

Mr Bryany said:

”I bought half of it froo She was badly hard up for a hundred pounds and I let her have the esture that see with a hundred pounds just as easily

”How did she _get_ the option?” Edward Henry inquired, putting into the query all the innuendo of a reat worldly affairs froot it from the late Lord Woldo She was always very friendly with the late Lord Woldo, you know” Edward Henry nodded ”Why, she and the Countess of Chell are as thick as thieves!

You know so about the Countess down here, I reckon?”

The Countess of Chell was the wife of the suprenate

Edward Henry answered calmly, ”We do”

He was tempted to relate a unique adventure of his youth, when he had driven the Countess to a public e, but sheer pride kept hiures,” he added, in a manner which requested Mr Bryany to remember that he was the founder, chairman and proprietor of the Five Towns Universal Thrift Club, one of the anizations in the Midlands

”Here they are!” said Mr Bryany, passing across the table a sheet of paper

And as Edward Henry studied the into his ear: ”Of course Rose got the ground-rent reduced

And when I tell you that the demand for theatres in the West End far exceeds the supply, and that theatre rents are always going up

When I tell you that a theatre costing 25,000 to build can be let for 11,000 a year, and often 300 a week on a short ter over his headAnd also, unhappily, he could hear Dr Stirling talking to his wife and saying to her that the bite was farvery audibly that nothing had ”happened” to him, her still absent husband ! And then he could hear Mr Bryany again:

”When I tell you ”

”When you tell me all this, Mr Bryany,” he interrupted with that ferocity which in the Five Towns is regarded as mere directness, ”I wonder why the devil you want to sell your half of the option--if you _do_ want to sell it Do you want to sell it?”

”To tell you the truth,” said Mr Bryany, as if up to that ht but lies, ”I do”

”Why?”

”Oh, I'land one day--America the next” (Apparently he had quickly abandoned the strictness of veracity) ”All depends on the governor's movements! I couldn't keep a proper eye on an affair of that kind”