"Shut up, lass!" he stopped her.
They plunged into the smoke and squalor of the Five Towns, and reached Birches Street with pomp, while Annie wondered how William Henry would contrive to get credit from a cabman. The entire street would certainly gather round if there should be a scene.
"Just help us in with this trunk, wilt?" said William Henry to the cabman. This, with sixpence in his pocket!
Then turning to his wife, he whispered:
"Lass, look under th' clock on th' mantelpiece in th' parlour. Ye'll find six bob."
He explained to her later that prudent members of Going Away Clubs always left money concealed behind them, as this was the sole way of providing against a calamitous return. The pair existed on the remainder of the six shillings and on credit for a week. William Henry became his hard self again. The prison life was resumed. But Annie did not mind, for she had lived for a week at the rate of a thousand a year. And in a fortnight William Henry began grimly to pay his subscriptions to the next year's Going Away Club.