"And what’s more," Denry pursued, "I ’ll collect ’em for five per cent. instead of seven and a half. Give me a free hand and see if I don’t get better results than _he_ did. And I ’ll settle accounts every month, or week if you like, instead of once a quarter, like _he_ does." The bright and beautiful idea had smitten Denry like some heavenly arrow. It went through him and pierced Mrs. Codleyn with equal success. It was an idea that appealed to the reason, to the pocket, and to the instinct of revenge. Having revengefully settled the hash of Mr. Duncalf, they went into church. No need to continue this part of the narrative! Even the text of the rector’s sermon has no bearing on the issue. In a week there was a painted board affixed to the door of Denry’s mother: "E. H. Machin, Rent Collector, and Estate Agent." There was also an inch advertisement in the _Signal_ announcing that Denry managed estates large or small. III The next crucial event in Denry’s career happened one Monday morning, in a cottage that was very much smaller even than his mother’s. This cottage, part of Mrs. Codleyn’s multitudinous property, stood by itself in Chapel Alley, behind the Wesleyan Chapel; the majority of the tenements were in Carpenter’s Square, near to. The neighbourhood was not distinguished for its social splendour; but existence in it was picturesque, varied, exciting, full of accidents, as existence is apt to be in residences that cost their occupiers an average of three shillings a week. Some persons referred to the quarter as a slum, and ironically insisted on its adjacency to the Wesleyan Chapel, as though that was the Wesleyan Chapel’s fault. Such people did not understand life and the joy thereof.