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‘Right. Th’ owd North Stafford’s getting up i’ th’ world. It’ll be a five per cent. line yet. Then thou mun sell out.’

She had only a vague idea of his meaning, and continued: ‘Five Towns Waterworks Company Limited consolidated stock, eight thousand five hundred pounds.’

‘That’s a tit-bit, lass,’ he interjected, looking absently over his spectacles at something outside in the road. ‘You canna’ pick that up on shardrucks.’

‘Norris’s Brewery Limited, six hundred ordinary shares of ten pounds.’

‘Twenty per cent.,’ said the old man. ‘Twenty per cent. regular.’ He made no attempt to conceal his pride in these investments. And he had the right to be proud of them. They were the finest in the market, the aristocracy of investments, based on commercial enterprises of which every business man in the Five Towns knew the entire soundness. They conferred distinction on the possessor, like a great picture or a rare volume. They stifled all questions and insinuations. Put before any jury of the Five Towns as evidence of character, they would almost have exculpated a murderer.