quivered for an instant above the edge of the chest, then
with a loud and defiant roar the flames closed in upon it, and began to
lick it up ravenously. The doors were banged shut, and John Winkletip
had his way.

But the Dingee million seemed to draw back instinctively from the touch
of the worthless Cy Winkletip.

With loud cries of joy, the various beneficiaries under Martha Delury's
will now discovered that Cyrus Winkletip was born on the 11th day of
August, and that as his father had departed this life on the 10th day of
August, the son was not of full age when his father died. But the law
put an end to this short-lived joy by making known one of its curious
bits of logic, which so often startle the layman.

It was this: The law takes no note of parts of a day, and therefore as
Cyrus Winkletip was of age on the first minute of his twenty-first
birthday, he was also of age on the last minute of the day
before--consequently on the first minute of the day before he was
twenty-one!

This gave the Dingee million to Cy Winkletip!

Under constant and stringent surveillance and tutelage, Cy Winkletip
was, after several years of as close application as was deemed safe in
view of his weak mental condition, admitted to the ministry in
accordance with the provisions of Miss Delury's will.

At last the wicked Dingee million seemed safely launched upon its task
of undoing the wrong it had done; but Cy Winkletip's mind ran completely
down in five years and he died a wretched slavering, idiot.

Mrs. Timmins was inclined to warn off the Dingee million with a gesture
of horror; but, yielding to the solicitation of her friends, she
consented to take title in order that she might create a trust with it
for some good and noble purpose. To this end, by a last will and
testament she created and endowed the American Society for the
Suppression of Gambling and Wager-laying, and then died.

The trustees at once began to erect the buildings called for, but before
the society had had an opportunity to suppress a single gaming
establishment, the lawyers, at the prayer of Mrs. John Winkletip, Mrs.
Timmin's mother, fell tooth and nail upon the trust, which was declared
too "vague, shadowy, and indefinite to be executed," and the Dingee
million, its roundness now sadly shrunken, made its way across the ocean
to Mrs. John Winkletip, of Clapham Common, London.

She died last year and with her the wanderings of the Dingee million
came to