The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Red Rat's Daughter, by Guy Boothby

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Title: The Red Rat's Daughter

Author: Guy Boothby

Illustrator: Henry Austin

Release Date: June 27, 2010 [EBook #33004]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Produced by Al Haines

[Illustration: Cover art]

[Frontispiece: "At last .... he drew her up."]

THE RED RAT'S DAUGHTER

By Guy Boothby

AUTHOR OF "DOCTOR NIKOLA," "THE BEAUTIFUL WHITE DEVIL,"
"PHAROS, THE EGYPTIAN," ETC, ETC

ILLUSTRATED BY HENRY AUSTIN

LONDON

WARD, LOCK AND CO LIMITED

NEW YORK AND MELBOURNE

1899

CHAPTER I

If John Grantham Browne had a fault--which, mind you, I am not prepared
to admit--it lay in the fact that he was the possessor of a cynical wit
which he was apt at times to use upon his friends with somewhat
peculiar effect. Circumstances alter cases, and many people would have
argued that he was perfectly entitled to say what he pleased. When a
man is worth a hundred and twenty thousand pounds a year--which, worked
out, means ten thousand pounds a month, three hundred and twenty-eight
pounds, fifteen shillings and fourpence a day, and four-and-sixpence
three-farthings, and a fraction over, per minute--he may surely be
excused if he becomes a little sceptical as to other people's motives,
and is apt to be distrustful of the world in general. Old Brown, his
father, without the "e," as you have doubtless observed, started life
as a bare-legged street arab in one of the big manufacturing
centres--Manchester or Birmingham, I am not quite certain which. His
head, however, must have been screwed on the right way, for he made few
mistakes, and everything he touched turned to gold. At thirty his bank
balance stood at fifteen thousand pounds; at forty it had turned the
corner of a hundred thousand; and when he departed this transitory
life, a young man in everything but years, he left his widow, young
John's mother--his second wife, I may remark in passing, and the third
daughter of the late Lord Rushbrooke--upwards of three and a half
million po