“Here they are!” said Mr. Bryany, passing across the table a sheet of paper.

And as Edward Henry studied them he could hear Mr. Bryany faintly cooing into his ear:  “Of course Rose got the ground-rent reduced.  And when I tell you that the demand for theatres in the West End far exceeds the supply, and that theatre rents are always going up ...  When I tell you that a theatre costing L25,000 to build can be let for L11,000 a year, and often L300 a week on a short term ...!” And he could hear the gas singing over his head ...  And also, unhappily, he could hear Dr. Stirling talking to his wife and saying to her that the bite was far more serious than it looked, and Nellie hoping very audibly that nothing had “happened” to him, her still absent husband ...!  And then he could hear Mr. Bryany again: 

“When I tell you ...”

“When you tell me all this, Mr. Bryany,” he interrupted with that ferocity which in the Five Towns is regarded as mere directness, “I wonder why the devil you want to sell your half of the option—­if you do want to sell it.  Do you want to sell it?”

“To tell you the truth,” said Mr. Bryany, as if up to that moment he had told naught but lies, “I do.”

“Why?”

“Oh, I’m always travelling about, you see.  England one day—­America the next.” (Apparently he had quickly abandoned the strictness of veracity.) “All depends on the governor’s movements!  I couldn’t keep a proper eye on an affair of that kind.”

Edward Henry laughed: 

“And could I?”

“Chance for you to go a bit oftener to London,” said Mr. Bryany, laughing too.  Then, with extreme and convincing seriousness, “You’re the very man for a thing of that kind.  And you know it!”

Edward Henry was not displeased by this flattery.

“How much?”

“How much?  Well, I told you frankly what I paid.  I made no concealment of that, did I now?  Well, I want what I paid.  It’s worth it!”

“Got a copy of the option, I hope!”

Mr. Bryany produced a copy of the option.

“I am nothing but an infernal ass to mix myself up in a mad scheme like this,” said Edward Henry to his soul, perusing the documents.  “It’s right off my line, right bang off it ...!  But what a lark!” But even to his soul he did not utter the remainder of the truth about himself, namely:  “I should like to cut a dash before this insufferable patronizer of England and the Five Towns.”

Suddenly something snapped within him and he said to Mr. Bryany: 

“I’m on!”

Those words and no more!

“You are?” Mr. Bryany exclaimed, mistrusting his ears.

Edward Henry nodded.

“Well, that’s business anyway!” said Mr. Bryany, taking a fresh cigarette and lighting it.

“It’s how we do business down here,” said Edward Henry, quite inaccurately; for it was not in the least how they did business down there.