Arnold Bennett 
The Card 
A Story of Adventure in the Five Towns

Set in the raw, Victorian world of the  »Five Towns »,
The Card tells the extremely funny and tangled story of Denry Machin »s rise from mediocrity to fame through a series of ludicrous and yet perversely successful schemes. He dances, pleads, cheats and inspires his way through life in a series of set-pieces which wonderfully evoke a now long-gone world of civic balls, seaside excursions, newspaper boys and patent chocolate remedies. As everybody said after one of his most stylish coups, Denry  »was not simply a card; he was
the card. »