"Why not?" said the other. "They gin'rally
do."

Mr. Vickers's denial died away on his lips. In twos and threes his
neighbours had drawn gradually near and now stood by listening
expectantly. The idea of a fortune was common to all of them, and
they were anxious for particulars.

[Illustration: "They were anxious for particulars."]

"Some people have all the luck," said a stout matron. "I've 'ad thirteen
and buried seven, and never 'ad so much as a chiney tea-pot left me. One
thing is, I never could make up to people for the sake of what I could
get out of them. I couldn't not if I tried. I must speak my mind free
and independent."

"Ah! that's how you get yourself disliked," said another lady, shaking
her head sympathetically.

"Disliked?" said the stout matron, turning on her fiercely. "What d'ye
mean? You don't know what you're talking about. Who's getting
themselves disliked?"

"A lot o' good a chiney tea-pot would be to you," said the other, with a
ready change of front, "or any other kind o' tea-pot."

Surprise and indignation deprived the stout matron of utterance.

"Or a milk-jug either," pursued her opponent, following up her advantage.
"Or a coffee-pot, or--"

The stout matron advanced upon her, and her mien was so terrible that the
other, retreating to her house, slammed the door behind her and continued
the discussion from a first-floor window. Mint Street, with the
conviction that Mr. Vickers's tidings could wait, swarmed across the road
to listen.

Mr. Vickers himself listened for a little while to such fragments as came
his way, and then, going indoors, sat down amid the remains of his
breakfast to endeavour to solve the mystery of the new clothes.

He took a short clay pipe from his pocket, and, igniting a little piece
of tobacco which remained in the bowl, endeavoured to form an estimate of
the cost of each person's wardrobe. The sum soon becoming too large to
work in his head, he had recourse to pencil and paper, and after five
minutes' hard labour sat gazing at a total which made his brain reel.
The fact that immediately afterwards he was unable to find even a few
grains of tobacco at the bottom of his box furnished a contrast which
almost made him maudlin.

He sat sucking at his cold pipe and indulging in hopeless conjectures as
to the source of so much wealth, and, with a sudden quickening of the
pulse, wondered whether it had all been spent. His mind wandered from
Sel