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. He did quite a
business. And having regard to the fantastic nature of the security, he
could not well charge less than threepence a week for half-a-crown. That
was about 40 per cent. a month and 500 per cent. per annum. The security
was merely fantastic, but nevertheless he had his remedy against
evil-doers. He would take what they paid him for rent and refuse to mark
it as rent, appropriating it to his loans, so that the fear of bailiffs
was upon them again. Thus, as the good genius of Chapel Alley and
Carpenter's Square, saving the distressed from the rigours of the open
street, rescuing the needy from their tightest corners, keeping many a
home together when but for him it would have fallen to pieces--always
smiling, jolly, sympathetic, and picturesque--Denry at length employed
the five-pound note won from Harold Etches. A five-pound note--
especially a new and crisp one, as this was--is a miraculous fragment of
matter, wonderful in the pleasure which the sight of it gives, even to
millionaires; but perhaps no five-pound note was ever so miraculous as
Denry's. Ten per cent. per week, compound interest, mounts up; it
ascends, and it lifts. Denry never talked precisely. But the town soon
began to comprehend that he was a rising man, a man to watch. The town
admitted that, so far, he had lived up to his reputation as a dancer