TOM Branstone had drawn a wage of a pound a week, and tips may have averaged ten shillings but more probably did not; your sixpenny tipper is a rare bird in Manchester.

Yet Anne had saved steadily, and she had not allowed a life-long habit to be interrupted by a little thing like the necessity of providing Sam with Grammar School books and clothes. I do not say that it was admirable in her, but merely that it was heroic. It was an incredible feat, but it can be done: it is done every day by people for whom the word “thrift” has meaning. Perhaps they are often unlovely in their lives or perhaps they have the robust satisfaction of those who live for an idea: opinion has always differed as to whether what they do is worth doing, and modern opinion inclines strongly to the belief that it is not. Life to these iconoclasts seems more important than the means of life.

To Anne it seemed abundantly worth while, and the proof was here now when she found that the interest on her savings amounted to three and four-pence weekly. They could live on Sam’s earnings and Anne’s “means” without pinching. Her forethought made all the difference now between too little and enough.

It was, of course, only to Anne that this seemed enough: Sam took a larger view, but found his vision cramped for some time to come by the conditions he met with in Mr. Travers’ office. Certainly that generous soul did not mean to humiliate Sam; he did not mean Sam to begin as office-boy; but, whatever his intentions, the clerks in his office defeated them. Sam was a newcomer, the latest arrival, in a minority of one against the old inhabitants; was there, moreover, obviously to do as he was told. He was told to sweep the floor in the morning, to copy letters and to lick stamps. He did these things rebelliously, bitter at heart that such menial service should be required of an ex-member of the Classical Transitus, certain that there was some mistake, that he had only to catch Mr. Travers’ eye when he was so shamefully occupied for that gentleman to take instant and drastic measures with the clerks who misemployed him.

Mr. Travers’ eye, even though caught at what Sam thought an opportune moment, While Sam copied letters, unexpectedly failed to disapprove. He seemed less preoccupied with Sam’s affairs than Sam was. As a matter of fact, he took a long distance view of Sam, and took it, unfortunately, rather muggily. Travers had the defect of his quality. A generous man, he was generous in the worst way to himself, and Sam soon learnt the meaning of a euphemism, current in the office, “Mr. Travers is attending a property auction.” Property auctions are, it is true, usually held on licensed premises, and whether Mr. Travers was or was not attending an auction he was certainly on licensed premises more often than was good for either his business or himself.

And it was bad for Sam, not because it left him to find his own feet in the office and to fight unbacked with his superiors (wherein, indeed, it was good), but because he had figured Travers from afar as a princely gentleman, without reproach, and the discovery of his failing took Sam a long way on the road to cynicism. In youth one’s faith dies hard, and, being dead, turns rapidly corrupt.

The business was an excellent one, rotting slowly from the top, and Sam found the office a notable place in which to pick up knowledge of the world; especially, since he lacked good direction, of the shadier ways of the world. He felt that he had declined in status: his school-friends, there his equals, had gone either to the Universities or, with influence behind them, to the professions. If they went to business, it was as their fathers’ sons. They were not scratch men, and Sam felt that he was starting at the scratch-line.

Travers had really no intentions that Sam should feel himself misprized. The boy had to learn the business, and the way to understanding lay from the bottom upwards. But Sam contrasted himself bitterly with Lance, first at school and then at Cambridge. In that, indeed, he found a minimum of consolation. It wasn’t rational, but to Anne and consequently to Sam, university had meant Oxford, and he won a hardy solace from the thought that Lance was, after all, “only” at Cambridge.

Meantime, he grew in knowledge of his world, and education came to Sam, not in the cloistered freedom of the Isis, but where, in Manchester, he went collecting rents: in country courts where hard laws operated hardly: and in the office, where men did not greet each other with a friendly smile, but gave instead the “competition glare.” It was not a kindly school in which he spent the developing years, but one where it was taught that self’s the man, and magnanimity is a mistake. “Get on or get out,” and Sam got on with a sort of choleric zeal which gave no quarter and expected none.

But he did not get on fast enough to please himself. He had, he thought, stepped down from the days of the Grammar School where he belonged with the caste that rules or, at any rate, administers, the caste that sits on velvet and overlooks the mob. Now he was in the cockpit, with the mob that struggles to ascend, and, to Sam, a wage of thirty shillings a week at the age of twenty was a derisory ascension. Anne thought it satisfying, and it was her contentment with his rate of progress which first made him begin to think of her as, after all, a limited person. You didn’t bribe Sam Branstone to be meekly satisfied with thirty shillings a week.

“The trouble is,” he said to the only man in the office with whom he was in the least confidential, “that you don’t begin to get on till you’ve got a bit of capital together. Money breeds money.”

His friend suggested betting as a means to affluence, and offered to tell him of a dead certainty.

Sam assumed his cunningest air of a superman of the world. “The best row of houses where I go for the rents,” he said, “belongs to Jack Elsworth, the bookie. I don’t see why I should help him to buy another house.”

“Bookies don’t always win,” said the optimist.

“No,” said Sam. “It’s possible to make money out of betting and it’s possible to get a baby by a harlot, but that isn’t what the harlot’s for, and it isn’t what the bookie’s for.”

At this time, harlots were the pegs on which Sam hung his wit. He had no other use for them, but had discovered that a coarse turn of phrase was an asset in his world and therefore wielded it. But the effect of this little conversation was to crystallize his aim. He wanted that “bit of capital” badly, and did not intend that, if opportunity presented, a nice regard for scruple should hold him back from taking anything the gods might send. He had no ultimate design, but fortune came to the fortunate and money to the moneyed, so that the first move was, obviously, to get money. He wanted a jumping-off place; then he would soar.

Opportunity walked into the office in the person of Joseph of Arimathea Minnifie. That was his full baptismal name: analogous with the styles of certain limited companies, such as John Smith ( of Newcastle) Limited, to distinguish that Smith from other Smiths. Minnifie’s mother had explained to the parson that she was a New Testament woman. To her intimates she had put it that she chose the name Joseph because she liked it, but she also liked a man to be a man. It was deduced that she supposed the third Joseph in the Bible would have acted differently from the first in the affair of Potiphar’s wife.

Sam’s accent had degenerated since the days of Shylock and the reading prize. It had kept bad company, and might be known by the company it kept to-day rather than by that which it used to keep at school; but he could still, without too great an effort, assume a well-bred speech and was often sent with a prospective buyer to show off any likely houses on Mr. Travers’ list. Because it was usual for him to go on such errands, and not because anyone supposed that niceties of speech could or would have any effect on Mr. Minnifie, he was sent with him in a cab to tour the suburbs where Travers had property in charge.

A coarse accent was not likely to offend Joseph Minnifie, who a fortnight earlier had been a market porter at Shude Hill, but had now come into money, well invested in the best Brewery securities, from his uncle, a publican. Minnifie had sold out some of the shares because he could now satisfy a long ambition and live in his own house. He proposed, he told Mr. Travers, to retire to the country.

“The country?” asked Travers, whose practice was suburban.

“Well,” said Minnifie, “summat quiet and homely. I’d like a change from Rochdale Road. I thought,” he went on rather shyly, “of Whalley Range. It’s a good neighbourhood.”

Travers refrained from pointing out that Whalley Range was not usually regarded as the country, but was, in fact, of the inner ring of suburbs, a penny tram fare from the centre of Manchester. “Oh, yes, Mr. Minnifie,” he said. “I think I can satisfy you in W’halley Range. I have several available houses on my books in that district.”

“I’ll pay three hundred pound for what I like,” said Minnifie, quite fiercely. “I’ve got it in my pocket now.” He was fierce because he was not yet quite sure that his legacy was not phantom gold, and he pulled out a bundle of notes as much to assure himself that they were still where he had put them as with the idea of proving his good faith to Travers.

Travers concealed a smile. After all, commission on three hundred pounds is not to be sneezed at, but neither was this the sort of client for whom Traver’s disturbed his habits. “I have myself,” he said, “a large property auction to attend in the city, but Mr. Branstone will go with you to inspect the houses.” He smiled kindly on Sam, and added, lest Minnifie should think his affair, so important to him, underrated by the agent: “Mr. Branstone is my confidential man. When Mr. Branstone tells you anything about the houses you are going to see, it is as if I spoke myself.”

“I see,” said Minnifie. “He’s your foreman, and you needn’t tell me you’ll back him up. I know foremen.”

“Well, his word is certainly as good as mine. I leave you in safe hands, Mr. Minnifie.” And Travers went out to attend his first auction of the day, which usually happened at eleven o’clock in the morning.

Sam and the client took a cab to Whalley Range, where Minnifie inspected several houses which were to be had at about his price. But he was hard to satisfy, and, what was worse, apparently unable to define his reasons for dissatisfaction. As Sam praised this and that about a house, Minnifie admitted that such things were praiseworthy, but he would, please, see another house. Sam was a little piqued and tried his best to be genial, suspecting that Minnifie resented being fobbed off with a “foreman”; and Sam’s best was very good, so that presently the ice was thawed.

Minnifle stood at the bow-window of a dining-room and looked up and down the street. It was empty save for a tradesman’s boy. From somewhere round the corner came the diminished rattle of a milk-cart. Minnifle shook his head sadly.

“It’s quiet,” he said. “See that road. Nothing stirring. What is there for the missus to look at when she sits in the window?”

“It’s morning,” said Sam. “Things will be brisker in the afternoon.” But his tone lacked conviction, and he could not resist the temptation to add: “There’s a cat crossing the road now.”

“Come out,” said Minnifle. “This’ull none do,” and when they stood upon the door-step he sniffed the air of Whalley Range with disapproval. “I don’t like it and it’s no use pretending that I do. It’s got a cold smell to me. It isn’t homely.”

“I know what you mean,” said Sam, diagnosing the trouble. “Wait a bit.” He gave the cabman an address and was careful to leave the window open. They came to other streets where the scent of yesterday’s fried fish still lingered in the air and the nose of Mr. Minnifle inhaled it greedily. “This is better,” he pronounced.

They had come to Greenheys, which, when De Quincey’s father built a country house there in 1791, was “separated from the last outskirts of Manchester by an entire mile.” It is by no means separated now, and good houses of the mid-Victorian period are to be had cheaply because good tenants dislike bad neighbours. Travers had one of these survivals from an urbane past on his books and Sam hugged himself for thinking of it now: that house had proved itself the whitest of white elephants.

Mr. Minnifie, exhilarated by the spicy smells of Greenheys, was no longer a timid excursionist looking only where his guide bade him, but a house hunter hot upon the trail, with eyes that spied on each side of their route.

“Ah!” he called suddenly. “Stop!”

The cabman stopped. “But we’re not there,” said Sam, rather blankly.

“I think we are,” said Minnifie, and got out of the cab.

Sam followed, in that leaden state of mind which often precedes inspiration. What had attracted Minnifie was a semi-detached house at a corner, which the trams passed. Opposite were shops, and there was a lively stir in the street. Certainly, Mrs. Minnifie would have something to see here when she looked out of the window.

Sam knew that pair of houses, and what he knew made him fear that he would not, this time, rid Mr. Travers of the white elephant on his books. They were good houses enough, but the people who had furniture to fill them were not the sort of people who welcomed shops opposite their windows and trams past their gate, so that both had been long empty. Now, however, they were for sale, under a will, and a quick sale was wanted that the estate might be wound up. They would certainly go cheaply on that account, and the more so since two attempted auctions had proved abortive. There had been no offers.

And here was Mr. Minnilie plainly delighted, and those houses not in Travers’ charge, but in that of a rival agency! Sam felt depressed, then as dawn follows darkness, lie thought of what Travers had said, that Sam’s word was as good as his own. It was going to be, and Mr. Minnifie’s money as good in Sam’s hands as in those of Calverts’, the legitimate agents for this pair of houses. He stepped out briskly now, the ardent salesman.

“One moment, Mr. Minnifie. I haven’t the key of this house with me, but it is at the shop opposite. I will get it.” His quick eye had read so much on Calverts’ notice board, but by the time he returned, Minnifie had also seen that rival name on the board and mentioned the fact.

“I know,” said Sam. “The board has not been altered, but this property is in my hands now.”

Which was true.

The house enchanted Minnifie, who had made up his mind in advance to be enchanted. And, of course, rooms may be in need of decoration, but good proportions tell, even on a Mr. Minnifie. This house was very different from the jerry-built villas of Whalley Range.

“What’s price?” he asked.

“Three hundred and fifteen pounds,” said Sam.

“I said three hundred and I’ll none budge.”

“If you will come to the office at six, I shall be able to tell you,” said Sam, naming a queer hour, seeing that the office closed at half-past five.

“All right,” said Minnifie. “It’s a firm offer at three hundred, and I’m a man of my word.”

Sam devoutly hoped so. He was taking a considerable gamble on it. They parted, and Sam, as usual, went home for lunch, but, not as usual, returned with his cheque-book in his pocket. His accumulated savings were five pounds, but he possessed a cheque-book. He waited rather carefully until the banks had closed, then he walked into Calverts’ offices and offered them two hundred and fifty pounds for the pair of semi-detached houses in Greenheys. They accepted two hundred and seventy-five; and Sam drew a cheque for that amount, and received the title-deeds in exchange. Then he palpitated, but it was, in any case, safely after banking hours. Calverts could not present his cheque that day.

He was busy at five-thirty, when the clerks left, and proposed to work late for a while, “to clear things up,” he said. At six Minnifie arrived, true to his word, and Sam could have kissed him. He had spent the longest half hour of his life. He took Minnifie by the private door into Travers’ office, so that he should not see the empty general office, and put him in the client’s chair, himself usurping Travers’ seat.

“Well, Mr. Minnifie,” he said, “suppose I told you that the price is still three fifteen, what would you say?”

“I’d say ‘Good-day,’” and Minnifie showed that he meant it by rising to his feet. Sam went on hurriedly.

“Ah! Then it’s as well that I’ve succeeded. It has been an infinitude of trouble—-”

“I reckon,” said Minnifie, “that you’re here to take trouble. Leastways, if it’s easy money in your line, it’s the only line that’s made that way.”

“Oh, we have our troubles, like everybody else. This document,” he went on, “conveys the house to you. The price is three hundred pounds.”

“It’s a bargain,” said Mr. Minnifie, producing his notes, “count’em.” Sam counted feverishly, then made out a receipt. Nothing short of murder would have induced him to part with that money now.

“If you will meet me to-morrow at twelve at that address—a lawyer’s—we will have the conveyance put in proper form.”

“I’ve seen a bit of lawyers lately over this brass of mine,” said Minnifie, “and I don’t like’em. They eat money.”

“But in this case,” said Sam magnanimously, “I pay the lawyer’s fees.”

“Then I’ll be there,” said Minnifie.

Sam was waiting next day for the doors of his bank to open, and breathed colossal relief when his three hundred pounds were safely in to meet his cheque. He had a net profit of some twenty pounds, after settling for the conveyancing, and he had a house to sell. Not long afterwards, he sold it for one hundred and seventy-five pounds.

The fact that one of the pair had been thought desirable by somebody caused somebody else to desire the other: and Sam could only hope that the new neighbours would not compare notes. If they did, it did not matter; he had only obeyed the axiom of commerce, “Buy cheap, sell dear,” and it was not his fault that in the one case he had had to sell less dearly than in the other.

His bank credit was two hundred pounds.