shorthand at the rate of a hundred and fifty words a minute. In those
days mediocre and incorrect shorthand was not a drug on the market. He
complied (more or less, and decidedly less than more) with the
condition. And for several years he really thought that he had nothing
further to hope for. Then he met the Countess.

The Countess of Chell was born of poor but picturesque parents, and she
could put her finger on her great-grandfather's grandfather. Her mother
gained her livelihood and her daughter's by allowing herself to be seen
a great deal with humbler but richer people's daughters. The Countess
was brought up to matrimony. She was aimed and timed to hit a given mark
at a given moment. She succeeded. She married the Earl of Chell. She
also married about twenty thousand acres in England, about a fifth of
Scotland, a house in Piccadilly, seven country seats (including Sneyd),
a steam yacht, and five hundred thousand pounds' worth of shares in the
Midland Railway. She was young and pretty. She had travelled in China
and written a book about China. She sang at charity concerts and acted
in private theatricals. She sketched from nature. She was one of the
great hostesses of London. And she had not the slightest tendency to
stoutness. All this did not satisfy her. She was ambitious! She wanted
to be taken seriously. She wanted to enter into the life of the people.
She saw in the quarter of a million souls that constitute the Five Towns
a unique means to her end, an unrivalled toy. And she determined to be
identified with all that was most serious in the social progress of the
Five Towns. Hence some fifteen thousand pounds were spent in
refurbishing Sneyd Hall, which lies on the edge of the Five Towns, and
the Earl and Countess passed four months of the year there. Hence the
Earl, a mild, retiring man, when invited by the Town Council to be the
ornamental Mayor of Bursley, accepted the invitation. Hence the Mayor
and Mayoress gave an immense afternoon reception to practically the