“Ye’re here for th’ better part o’ some time, then,” observed Mrs Hullins, looking facts in the face.  “I’ve told you about my son Jack.  He’s been playing [out of work] six weeks.  He starts to-day, and he’ll gi’me summat Saturday.”

“That won’t do,” said Denry, curtly and kindly.

He then, with his bluff benevolence, explained to Mother Hullins that Mrs Codleyn would stand no further increase of arrears from anybody, that she could not afford to stand any further increase of arrears, that her tenants were ruining her, and that he himself, with all his cheery good-will for the rent-paying classes, would be involved in her fall.

“Six-and-forty years have I been i’ this ’ere house!” said Mrs Hullins.

“Yes, I know,” said Denry.  “And look at what you owe, mother!”

It was with immense good-humoured kindliness that he invited her attention to what she owed.  She tacitly declined to look at it.

“Your children ought to keep you,” said Denry, upon her silence.

“Them as is dead, can’t,” said Mrs Hullins, “and them as is alive has their own to keep, except Jack.”

“Well, then, it’s bailiffs,” said Denry, but still cheerfully.

“Nay, nay!  Ye’ll none turn me out.”

Denry threw up his hands, as if to exclaim:  “I’ve done all I can, and I’ve given you a pinch of tobacco.  Besides, you oughtn’t to be here alone.  You ought to be with one of your children.”

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.  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,