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He had no notion of the mysterious preliminaries to the offering of a dinner in a public place. But the next morning he contracted to give away the lifeboat to a syndicate of boatmen, headed by John their leader, for thirty-five pounds. And he swore to himself that he would do that dinner properly, even if it cost him the whole price of the boat. Then he met Mrs Cotterill coming out of a shop.
"Come on upstairs," Denry called out, turning switches and adding radiance to radiance. "Denry!" his mother protested, "I'm sure I don't know what Mr and Mrs Cotterill will think of you! You carry on as if you owned everything in the place. I wonder at you!" "Well," said Denry, "if anybody in this town is the owner's agent I am. And Mr Cotterill has built the blessed house.
The younger Cotterill did not stir. "Sim!" he cried again, and, leaning over, shook the bed. "What's up?" Simeon demanded, broad awake in a second, and, as usual, calm, imperturbable. "We've missed the train! It's ten eight minutes to seven," said Arthur, in a voice which combined reproach and terror. And he sprang out of bed and began with hysteric fury to sort out his garments.
Mrs Cotterill, owing to a strange hazard of fate, began talking at once. And Denry, as an old shorthand writer, instinctively calculated that not Thomas Allen Reed himself could have taken Mrs Cotterill down verbatim. Her face tried to express pain, but pleasure shone out of it. For she found herself in an exciting contretemps which she could understand.
But the house seems to be all ready for him...." "Yes, my word! And how's yourself, Mrs Cotterill?" put in Mrs Machin. "So we may as well look over it in its finished state. I suppose that's what he asked us up for," Denry concluded. Mrs Machin explained quickly and nervously that she had not been comprised in any invitation; that her errand was pure business.
"I don't expect anyone can teach you much about the value o' property in this town. You know as well as I do. If you happened to have a couple of thousand loose by gosh! it's a chance in a million." "Yes," said Denry. "I should say that was just about what it was." "I put it before you," Cotterill proceeded, gathering way, and missing the flavour of Denry's remark.
"I'm going to file my petition to-morrow," said he, and gave a short laugh. "Really!" said Denry, who could think of nothing else to say. His name was not Capron-Smith. "Yes; they won't leave me any alternative," said Mr Cotterill. Then he gave a brief history of his late commercial career to the young man.
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!
Only the ship was apparently solid, apparently cemented in foundations of concrete. On the starboard side of the promenade-deck, among a hundred other small groups, was a group consisting of Mr and Mrs Cotterill and Ruth and Denry. Nellie stood a few feet apart, Mrs Cotterill was crying. People naturally thought she was crying because of the adieux; but she was not.
She was no little, clinging, raw girl. Further, she was less hard than of yore. Her voice and gestures had a different quality. The world had softened her. And it occurred to him suddenly that her sole fault extravagance had no importance now that she was wealthy. He told her all that Mr Cotterill had said about Canada. And she told him all that Mrs Cotterill had said about Canada.
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