Category: Novels

Denry the Audacious

Edward Henry Machin first saw the smoke on the 27th May, 1867, in Brougham Street, Bursley, the most ancient of the Five Towns. Brougham Street runs down from St. Luke's Square straight into the Shropshire Union Canal, and consists partly of buildings known as "potbanks" (unti...

Chapters

9. CHAPTER VIII. RAISING A WIGWAM

A still young man--his age was thirty--with a short, strong beard peeping out over the fur collar of a vast overcoat, emerged from a cab at the snowy corner of St. Luke's Square...

3. CHAPTER III. THE PANTECHNICON

"How do you do, Miss Earp?" said Denry, in a worldly manner which he had acquired for himself by taking the most effective features of the manners of several prominent citizens,...

6. CHAPTER V. THE MERCANTILE MARINE

The decisive scene, henceforward historic, occurred in the shanty known as "John's cabin"--John being the unacknowledged leader of the 'longshore population--under the tail of L...

8. CHAPTER VII. THE RESCUER OF DAMES

It next happened that Denry began to suffer from the ravages of a malady which is almost worse than failure--namely, a surfeit of success. The success was that of his Universal...

7. CHAPTER VI. HIS BURGLARY

The fact that Denry Machin decided not to drive behind his mule to Sneyd Hall showed in itself that the enterprise of interviewing the Countess of Chell was not quite the simple...

12. CHAPTER XI. IN THE ALPS

Although Denry was extremely happy as a bridegroom, and capable of the most foolish symptoms of affection in private, he said to himself, and he said to Nellie (and she sturdily...

11. CHAPTER X. HIS INFAMY

When Denry at a single stroke "wherreted" his mother and proved his adventurous spirit by becoming the possessor of one of the first motorcars ever owned in Bursley, his instinc...

2. CHAPTER II. THE WIDOW HULLINS'S HOUSE

The simple fact that he first, of all the citizens of Bursley, had asked a Countess for a dance (and not been refused) made a new man of Denry Machin. He was not only regarded b...

1. CHAPTER I. THE DANCE

Edward Henry Machin first saw the smoke on the 27th May, 1867, in Brougham Street, Bursley, the most ancient of the Five Towns. Brougham Street runs down from St. Luke's Square...

10. CHAPTER IX. THE GREAT NEWSPAPER WAR

When Denry and his mother had been established a year and a month in the new house at Bleakridge, Denry received a visit one evening which perhaps flattered him more than anythi...

13. CHAPTER XII. THE SUPREME HONOUR

Denry was not as regular in his goings and comings as the generality of business men in the Five Towns; no doubt because he was not by nature a business man at all, but an adven...

4. CHAPTER IV. WRECKING OF A LIFE

In the Five Towns, and perhaps elsewhere, there exists a custom in virtue of which a couple who have become engaged in the early summer find themselves by a most curious coincid...

5. did. There was no facet of that retort that escaped Ruth's critical

"Oh!" he said. "I 'm not going to-night. I 've got some business to attend to here. I thought you understood. I expect you 'll be all right, you two together."