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Ellis quitted the portico, ran down the winding garden-path, and jumped neatly and fearlessly on to an electric tramcar as it passed at the rate of fifteen miles an hour. The car was going to Hanbridge, and it was crowded with the joy of life; Ellis had to stand on the step.
Nothing might have happened, yet everything had happened. Next, Denry found himself seated on the temporary platform which had been erected in the large games hall of the Policemen's Institute. The Mayor of Hanbridge was in the chair, and he had the Countess on his right and the Mayoress of Bursley on his left.
Second, that a few days later, when Jock came over to see his mother, Denry was present, and that subsequently Denry and Jock went for a stroll together in the cemetery, the principal resort of strollers in Bursley. Third, that on the afternoon of the opening ceremony the Countess's carriage broke down in Sneyd Vale, two miles from Sneyd and three miles from Hanbridge.
The youths then departed, saying that the Bursley show was nothing, and that they were going to Hanbridge; they conveyed the idea that Hanbridge was the only place in the world for self-respecting men of fashion. But before leaving they informed Edwin that a fellow at the corner of the Square was letting out rather useful barrels on lease.
And, as a matter of fact, they were in Hanbridge the next minute Hanbridge, the centre of the religions, the pleasures, and the vices of the Five Towns. 'Bless us! said the old man. 'It's fifteen year and more since I were here. 'Harold, said Maud, 'let's stop at the Piccadilly Cafe and have some tea. 'Cafe? asked Dan. 'What be that?
A number of people present had never been in a theatre, either for lack of opportunity or from a moral objection to theatres. Many others, who seldom missed a melodrama at the Hanbridge Theatre Royal, avoided operas by virtue of the infallible instinct which caused them to recoil from anything exotic enough to disturb the calm of their lifelong mental lethargy.
Hanbridge smiled cynically at this impasse produced by an idle word, and, recognising the equality of the antagonists, leaned neither to one side nor to the other.
If it be asked where was the twenty-six pounds so generously given to her by a loving uncle, the reply is that the whole sum, together with much else, was in the coffers of Ezra Brunt, the draper and costumier at Hanbridge; and the reply further is that Helen was in debt. I have hitherto concealed Helen's tendency to debts, but it was bound sooner or later to come out. And here it is.
And all the select private bars in Hanbridge tinkled to the news that May Scarratt had been and hooked a stockbroker!
It is still called Knype Wakes, because once Knype overshadowed Hanbridge in importance; but its headquarters are now quite properly at Hanbridge, the hub, the centre, the Paris of the Five Towns Hanbridge, the county borough of sixty odd thousand inhabitants.
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