"Ye're here for th' better part o' some time, then," observed Mrs Hullins, looking facts in the face. "I've told you about my son Jack. He's been playing [out of work] six weeks. He starts to-day, and he'll gi me summat Saturday."
"That won't do," said Denry, curtly and kindly.
He then, with his bluff benevolence, explained to Mother Hullins that Mrs Codleyn would stand no further increase of arrears from anybody, that she could not afford to stand any further increase of arrears, that her tenants were ruining her, and that he himself, with all his cheery good-will for the rent-paying classes, would be involved in her fall.
"Six-and-forty years have I been i' this 'ere house!" said Mrs Hullins.
"Yes, I know," said Denry. "And look at what you owe, mother!"
It was with immense good-humoured kindliness that he invited her attention to what she owed. She tacitly declined to look at it.
"Your children ought to keep you," said Denry, upon her silence.
"Them as is dead, can't," said Mrs Hullins, "and them as is alive has their own to keep, except Jack."
"Well, then, it's bailiffs," said Denry, but still cheerfully.
"Nay, nay! Ye'll none turn me out."