got it cashed, because I got by the very same
post good news from England. My great-aunt Maxwell is dead at Bath and
has left me all her money, twenty thousand pounds. Isn't it the luckiest
fluke that ever was? But all the same it is a kindness that I shan't
forget. You are an awfully good sort to have done it. Most fellows would
have seen me in Halifax first, you know. And if ever you want a friend
you'll know where to find him, that's all. Only fancy all this money
falling in when I hadn't a penny and was in perfect despair! Such luck!
And such a fluke, as I have said. You see, it was all to have been
Bill's. He has always been my aunt's favorite, though at first it was to
have been divided between us; only when I was a little chap I blew off
the tail of her parrot with a bunch of fire-crackers. Haw! haw! haw! I
was never allowed there afterward, and she hated the very name of me.
She and Bill have hit it off together so well that he never had the
least fear of me stepping in. But on last Valentine's Day it seems that
she got an awfully cocky, cheeky valentine of an old maid putting on a
wig and painting her face, and it had the Stoke-Pogis post-mark, and she
took it into her head that Bill had sent it, flew into a most awful
rage, and sent for her solicitor and changed her will. And then, most
fortunate thing, she died that night, and couldn't make another."

"Well, you are a doting nephew, upon my word," said Job.

"It is no use of me being a hypocrite and going about looking cut up and
pretending that I am sorry when I am not," replied Mr. Ramsay. "I
haven't seen her for years, and she was nasty to me even when I was a
child, and she was a regular old cat, and no good to herself or anybody
else. I don't see why I should pull a long face and turn crocodile
because she made me her heir to spite Bill, though it comes in most
beautifully for me. I don't mean to keep it all, though I could swell it
considerably if I did. It would be a dirty thing to do, for Bill has
been brought up to expect it and didn't send the valentine at all. I
shall go halves with him; that seems fair all round." Mr. Ketchum agreed
with him, and Mr. Ramsay went on to make further confidences, in which
it appeared that he still cared for Miss Brown, and had "thought an
awful lot about her," and now rejoiced to find himself in a position to
address her if she was still free. Tom Price, coming in, could scarcely
announce that the buggy was at the d