reading-room, that haunt of learning, was as empty as ever; but the bar
was full of men, smoke, and glasses. It was so full that Denry's arrival
was scarcely observed. However, the Secretary and Steward observed him,
and soon he was chatting with a group at the bar, presided over by the
Secretary and Steward's shirt-sleeves. He glanced around, and was
satisfied. It was a scene of dashing gaiety and worldliness that did not
belie the club's reputation. Some of the most important men in Bursley
were there. Charles Fearns, the solicitor, who practised at Hanbridge,
was arguing vivaciously in a corner. Fearns lived at Bleakridge and
belonged to the Bleakridge Club, and his presence at Hillport (two miles
from Bleakridge) was a dramatic tribute to the prestige of Hillport's
Club.

Fearns was apparently in one of his anarchistic moods. Though a
successful business man who voted right, he was pleased occasionally to
uproot the fabric of society and rebuild it on a new plan of his own.
To-night he was inveighing against landlords--he who by "conveyancing"
kept a wife and family, and a French governess for the family, in rather
more than comfort. The Fearns's French governess was one of the seven
wonders of the Five Towns. Men enjoyed him in these moods; and as he
raised his voice, so he enlarged the circle of his audience.

"If the by-laws of this town were worth a bilberry," he was saying,
"about a thousand so-called houses would have to come down to-morrow.
Now there's that old woman I was talking about just now--Hullins. She's
a Catholic--and my governess is always slumming about among Catholics--
that's how I know. She's paid half-a-crown a week for pretty near half a
century for a hovel that isn't worth eighteen-pence, and now she's going
to be pitched into the street because she can't pay any more. And she's
seventy if she's a day! And that's the basis of society. Nice refined