not of their set.  Indeed, like many very eminent men, he was not to any degree in anybody’s set.  Of one thing he was sure—­because he had read it on the self-conscious faces of all three of them—­namely, that they had been discussing him.  Possibly he had been brought up for Mr. Bryany’s inspection as a major lion and character of the district.  Well, he did not mind that; nay, he enjoyed that.  He could feel Mr. Bryany covertly looking him over.  And he thought:  “Look, my boy!  I make no charge.”  He smiled and nodded to one or two people who with pride saluted him from the stalls....  It was meet that he should be visible there on that Friday night!

“A full house!” he observed, to break the rather awkward silence of the box, as he glanced round at the magnificent smoke-veiled pageant of the aristocracy and the democracy of the Five Towns, crowded together, tier above gilded tier, up to the dim roof where ragged lads and maids giggled and flirted while waiting for the broken plates to be cleared away and the moving pictures to begin.

“You may say it!” agreed Mr. Bryany, who spoke with a very slight American accent.  “Dakins positively hadn’t a seat to offer me.  I happened to have the evening free.  It isn’t often I do have a free evening.  And so I thought I’d pop in here.  But if Dakins hadn’t introduced me to these gentlemen my seat would have had to be a standing one.”

“So that’s how they got to know him, is it?” thought Edward Henry.

And then there was another short silence.

“Hear you’ve been doing something striking in rubber shares, Machin?” said Brindley at length.

Astonishing how these things got abroad!

“Oh! very little, very little!” Edward Henry laughed modestly.  “Too late to do much!  In another fortnight the bottom will be all out of the rubber market.”

“Of course I’m an Englishman”—­Mr. Bryany began.

“Why ’of course’?” Edward Henry interrupted him.

“Hear!  Hear!  Alderman.  Why ’of course’?” said Brindley, approvingly, and Stirling’s rich laugh was heard.  “Only it does just happen,” Brindley added, “that Mr. Bryany did us the honour to be born in the district.”

“Yes!  Longshaw,” Mr. Bryany admitted, half proud and half apologetic.  “Which I left at the age of two.”

“Oh, Longshaw!” murmured Edward Henry with a peculiar inflection.

Longshaw is at the opposite end of the Five Towns from Bursley, and the majority of the inhabitants of Bursley have never been to Longshaw in their lives, have only heard of it, as they hear of Chicago or Bangkok.  Edward Henry had often been to Longshaw, but, like every visitor from Bursley, he instinctively regarded it as a foolish and unnecessary place.

“As I was saying,” resumed Mr. Bryany, quite unintimidated, “I’m an Englishman.  But I’ve lived eighteen years in America, and it seems to me the bottom will soon be knocked out of pretty nearly all the markets in England.  Look at the Five Towns!”