Denry objected to accompanying his mother into the kitchen. But he was forced to submit. She shut the door on both of them. It is probable that during the seven minutes which they spent mysteriously together in the kitchen, the practicability of the kitchen apparatus for carrying off waste products was duly tested. Denry came forth, very pale and very cross, on his mother's arm.

"There's no danger now," said his mother easily.

Naturally the party was at an end. The Cotterills sympathised, and prepared to depart, and inquired whether Denry could walk home.

Denry replied, from a sofa, in a weak, expiring voice, that he was perfectly incapable of walking home, that his sensations were in the highest degree disconcerting, that he should sleep in that house, as the bedrooms were ready for occupation, and that he should expect his mother to remain with him.

And Mrs. Machin had to concur. Mrs. Machin sped the Cotterills from the door as though it had been her own door. She was exceedingly angry and agitated. But she could not impart her feelings to the suffering Denry.

He moaned on a bed for about half an hour, and then fell asleep. And in the middle of the night, in the dark strange house, she also fell asleep.

VI

The next morning she arose and went forth, and in about half-an-hour returned. Denry was still in bed, but his health seemed to have resumed its normal excellence. Mrs. Machin burst upon him in such a state of complicated excitement as he had never before seen her in.

"Denry," she cried. "What do you think?"

"What?" said he.

"I 've just been down home, and they 're-they 're pulling the house down. All the furniture 's out, and they 've got all the tiles off the roof, and the windows out. And there's a regular crowd watching."

Denry sat up.

"And I can tell you another piece of news," said he. "Mr. Cecil Wilbraham is dead."

"Dead!" she breathed.

"Yes," said Denry. "_I think he 's served his purpose_. As we 're here, we 'll stop here. Don't forget it's the most sensible kind of a house you 've ever seen. Don't forget that Mrs. Cotterill could run it without a servant and have herself tidy by ten o'clock in a morning."

Mrs. Machin perceived then, in a flash of terrible illumination, that there never had been any Cecil Wilbraham; that Denry had merely invented him and his long moustaches and his wall eye for the purpose of getting the better of his mother. The whole affair was an immense swindle upon her. Not a Mr. Cecil Wilbraham, but her own son had bought her cottage over her head and jockeyed her out of it beyond any chance of getting into it again. And to defeat his mother the rascal had not simply perverted the innocent Nellie Cotterill to some co-operation in his scheme, but he had actually bought four other cottages because the landlord would not sell one alone, and he was actually demolishing property to the sole end of stopping her from re-entering it!

Of course, the entire town soon knew of the upshot of the battle, of the year-long battle, between Denry and his mother, and the means adopted by Denry to win. The town also had been hoodwinked, but it did not mind that. It loved its Denry the more, and, seeing that he was now properly established in the most remarkable house in the district, it soon afterwards made him a town councillor as some reward for his talent in amusing it.

And Denry would say to himself:

"Everything went like clockwork, except the mustard and water. I did n't bargain for the mustard and water. And yet, if I was clever enough to think of putting a label on the bottle and to have the beds prepared, I ought to have been clever enough to keep mustard out of the house."

It would be wrong to mince the unpleasant fact that the sham poisoning which he had arranged to the end that he and his mother should pa.s.s the night in the house had finished in a manner much too realistic for Denry's pleasure. Mustard and water, particularly when mixed by Mrs.

Machin, is mustard and water.

She had that consolation.

CHAPTER IX. THE GREAT NEWSPAPER WAR

I

When Denry and his mother had been established a year and a month in the new house at Bleakridge, Denry received a visit one evening which perhaps flattered him more than anything had ever flattered him. The visitor was Mr. Myson. Now Mr. Myson was the founder, proprietor, and editor of the _Five Towns Weekly_, a new organ of public opinion which had been in existence about a year; and Denry thought that Mr. Myson had popped in to see him in pursuit of an advertis.e.m.e.nt of the Thrift Club, and at first he was not at all flattered.

But Mr. Myson was not hunting for advertis.e.m.e.nts, and Denry soon saw him to be the kind of man who would be likely to depute that work to others.

Of middle height, well and quietly dressed, with a sober, a.s.sured deportment, he spoke in a voice and accent that were not of the Five Towns; they were superior to the Five Towns. And in fact Mr. Myson originated in Manchester and had seen London. He was not provincial, and he beheld the Five Towns as part of the provinces, which no native of the Five Towns ever succeeds in doing. Nevertheless, his manner to Denry was the summit of easy and yet deferential politeness.

He asked permission "to put something before" Denry. And when, rather taken aback by such smooth phrases, Denry had graciously accorded the permission, he gave a brief history of the _Five Towns Weekly_, showing how its circulation had grown, and definitely stating that at that moment it was yielding a profit. Then he said:

"Now my scheme is to turn it into a daily."

"Very good notion!" said Denry instinctively.

"I 'm glad you think so," said Mr. Myson. "Because I 've come here in the hope of getting your a.s.sistance. I 'm a stranger to the district, and I want the co-operation of some one who is n't. So I 've come to you. I need money, of course, though I have myself what most people would consider sufficient capital. But what I need more than money is-well-moral support."

"And who put you on to me?" asked Denry.

Mr. Myson smiled. "I put myself on to you," said he. "I think I may say I 've got my bearings in the Five Towns, after over a year's journalism in it, and it appeared to me that you were the best man I could approach. I always believe in flying high."

Therein was Denry flattered. The visit seemed to him to seal his position in the district in a way in which his election to the Bursley Town Council had failed to do. He had been somehow disappointed with that election. He had desired to display his interest in the serious welfare of the town, and to answer his opponent's arguments with better ones. But the burgesses of his ward appeared to have no pa.s.sionate love of logic. They just cried "Good old Denry!" and elected him-with a majority of only forty-one votes. He had expected to feel a different Denry when he could put "Councillor" before his name. It was not so.

He had been solemnly in the mayoral procession to church, he had attended meetings of the council, he had been nominated to the Watch Committee. But he was still precisely the same Denry, though the youngest member of the council. But now he was being recognised from the outside. Mr. Myson's keen Manchester eye, ranging over the quarter of a million inhabitants of the Five Towns in search of a representative individual force, had settled on Denry Machin. Yes, he was flattered.

Mr. Myson's choice threw a rose light on all Denry's career; his wealth and its origin; his house and stable, which were the astonishment and the admiration of the town; his Universal Thrift Club; yea, and his councillorship. After all, these _were_ marvels. (And possibly the greatest marvel was the signed presence of his mother in that wondrous house, and the fact that she consented to employ Rose Chudd, the incomparable Sappho of charwomen, for three hours every day.)

In fine, he perceived from Mr. Myson's eyes that his position was unique.

And after they had chatted a little, and the conversation had deviated momentarily from journalism to house property, he offered to display Machin House (as he had christened it) to Mr. Myson, and Mr. Myson was really impressed beyond the ordinary. Mr. Myson's homage to Mrs.

Machin, whom they chanced on in the paradise of the bathroom, was the polished mirror of courtesy. How Denry wished that he could behave like that when he happened to meet countesses!

Then, once more in the drawing-room, they resumed the subject of newspapers.

"You know," said Mr. Myson. "It 's really a very bad thing indeed for a district to have only one daily newspaper. I 've nothing myself to say against _The Staffordshire Signal_, but you 'd perhaps be astonished"-this in a confidential tone-"at the feeling there is against the _Signal_ in many quarters."

"Really!" said Denry.

"Of course its fault is that it is n't sufficiently interested in the great public questions of the district. And it can't be. Because it can't take a definite side. It must try to please all parties. At any rate it must offend none. That is the great evil of a journalistic monopoly.... Two hundred and fifty thousand people-why! there is an ample public for two first-cla.s.s papers! Look at Nottingham! Look at Bristol! Look at Leeds! Look at Sheffield! ... And _their_ newspapers."

And Denry endeavoured to look at these great cities! Truly the Five Towns was just about as big.

The dizzy journalistic intoxication seized him. He did not give Mr.

Myson an answer at once, but he gave himself an answer at once. He would go into the immense adventure. He was very friendly with the _Signal_ people-certainly; but business was business, and the highest welfare of the Five Towns was the highest welfare of the Five Towns.

Soon afterwards all the h.o.a.rdings of the district spoke with one blue voice, and said that the _Five Towns Weekly_ was to be transformed into the _Five Towns Daily_, with four editions beginning each day at noon, and that the new organ would be conducted on the lines of a first-cla.s.s evening paper.

The inner ring of knowing ones knew that a company ent.i.tled "The Five Towns Newspapers, Limited," had been formed, with a capital of ten thousand pounds, and that Mr. Myson held three thousand pounds' worth of shares, and the great Denry Machin one thousand five hundred, and that the remainder were to be sold and allotted as occasion demanded. The inner ring said that nothing would ever be able to stand up against the _Signal_. On the other hand, it admitted that Denry, the most prodigious card ever born into the Five Towns, had never been floored by anything or anybody. The inner ring antic.i.p.ated the future with glee.

Denry and Mr. Myson antic.i.p.ated the future with righteous confidence.

As for the _Signal_, it went on its august way, calmly blind to sensational h.o.a.rdings.