In the Five Towns the following history is related by those who know it as something sidesplittingly funny-as one of the best jokes that ever occurred in a district devoted to jokes. And I, too, have hitherto regarded it as such. But upon my soul, now that I come to write it down, it strikesme as being, after all, a pretty grim tragedy. However, you shall judge, and laugh or cry as you please.It began in the little house of Mrs Carpole, up at Bleakridge, on the hill between Bursley andHanbridge. Mrs Carpole was the second Mrs Carpole, and her husband was dead. She had a stepson, Horace, and a son of her own, Sidney. Horace is the hero, or the villain, of the history. On the daywhen the unfortunate affair began he was nineteen years old, and a model youth. Not only was hegetting on in business, not only did he give half his evenings to the study of the chemistry of potteryand the other half to various secretaryships in connection with the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel andSunday-school, not only did he save money, not only was he a comfort to his stepmother and a sortof uncle to Sidney, not only was he an early riser, a total abstainer, a non-smoker, and a goodlistener; but, in addition to the practice of these manifold and rare virtues, he found time, even atthat tender age, to pay his tailor's bill promptly and to fold his trousers in the same crease everynight-so that he always looked neat and dignified. Strange to say, he made no friends. Perhaps hewas just a thought too perfect for a district like the Five Towns; a sin or so might have endeared himto the entire neighbourhood. Perhaps his loneliness was due to his imperfect sense of humour, orperhaps to the dull, unsmiling heaviness of his somewhat flat features.Sidney was quite a different story. Sidney, to use his mother's phrase, was a little jockey. Hisyears were then eight. Fair-haired and blue-eyed, as most little jockeys are, he had a smile and ascowl that were equally effective in tyrannizing over both his mother and Horace, and he wasbeloved by everybody. Women turned to look at him in the street. Unhappily, his health was notgood. He was afflicted by a slight deafness, which, however, the doctor said he would grow out of;the doctor predicted for him a lusty manhood. In the meantime, he caught every disease thathappened to be about, and nearly died of each one. His latest acquisition had been scarlet fever.Now one afternoon, after he had 'peeled' and his room had been disinfected, and he was beginningto walk again, Horace came home and decided that Sidney should be brought downstairs for tea as atreat, to celebrate his convalescence, and that he, Horace, would carry him downstairs. Mrs Carpolewas delighted with the idea, and Sidney also, except that Sidney did not want to be carrieddownstairs-he wanted to walk dow