Читать книгу THE EAST END TRILOGY: Tales of Mean Streets, A Child of the Jago & To London Town - Morrison Arthur - Страница 22

Things went placidly on for near ten months. Many barrels of beer had come in full and been sent empty away. Also the missis had got a gold watch and divers new bonnets and gowns, some by gift from Bill, some by applying privily to the drawer. Her private collection of bottles, too, had been cleared out twice, and was respectable for the third time. Everybody was not friendly with her, and one bonnet had been torn off her head by a neighbor who disliked her airs.

So it stood when, on a certain morning, Bill, being, minded to go out, found but two shillings in his pocket. He called upstairs to the missis, as was his custom in such a pass, asking her to fetch a sovereign or two when she came down; and, as she was long in coming, he went up himself. The missis left the room hurriedly, and Bill, after raking out every corner of the drawer (which he himself had not opened for some time) saw not a single coin. The missis had no better explanation than that there must have been thieves in the house some time lately — a suggestion deprived of some value by the subsequent protest that Bill couldn’t expect money to last forever, and that he had had the last three days ago. In the end there was a vehement row, and the missis was severely thumped.

The thumping over, Bill Napper conceived a great idea. Perhaps after all the lawyers had done him by understating the amount his brother had left. It might well have been five hundred pounds — a thousand pounds — anything. Probably it was, and the lawyers had had the difference. Plainly, three hundred pounds was a suspiciously small sum to inherit from a well-to-do-brother. He would go to the lawyers and demand the rest of his money. He would not reveal his purpose till he saw the lawyers face to face, and then he would make his demand suddenly, so that surprise and consternation should overwhelm and betray them. He would give them to understand that he had complete evidence of the whole swindle. In any case, he could lose nothing. He went, after carefully preparing his part, and was turned out by a policeman.

“After that,” mused Squire Napper, going home, “I suppose I’d better see about getting a job at Allen’s again. He can’t but make me gaffer, considering I’ve been a man of property.”