upon as perverse obstinacy, we
served them with a writ at once. They gave in; and the money was handed
over to Mr. Jesse Andrews, whose joy at his sudden riches did not, I was
forced to admit, appear to be in the slightest degree damped by any
feeling of sadness for the loss of an only child.

We wrote to inform Mr. Archibald Andrews of these occurrences, and to
request further instructions with regard to the annuity hitherto paid to
his cousin. A considerable time would necessarily elapse before an
answer could be received, and in the meantime Mr. Jesse Andrews plunged
headlong into the speculation he had been long hankering to engage in,
and was as he informed me a few weeks afterwards, on the royal road to a
magnificent fortune.

Clouds soon gathered over this brilliant prospect. The partner, whose
persuasive tongue and brilliant imagination had induced Mr. Andrews to
join him with his four thousand pounds, proved to be an arrant cheat and
swindler; and Mr. Andrews's application to us for legal help and redress
was just too late to prevent the accomplished dealer in moonshine and
delusion from embarking at Liverpool for America, with every penny of the
partnership funds in his pockets!

A favorable reply from Mr. Archibald Andrews had now become a question of
vital importance to his cousin, who very impatiently awaited its arrival.
It came at last. Mr. Andrews had died rather suddenly at Bombay a short
time before my letter arrived there, after executing in triplicate a
will, of which one of the copies was forwarded to me. By this instrument
his property--about thirty-five thousand pounds, the greatest portion of
which had been remitted from time to time for investment in the British
funds--was disposed of as follows:--Five thousand pounds to his cousin
Jesse Andrews, for the purpose of educating and maintaining Archibald
Andrews, the testator's godson, till he should have attained the age of
twentyone, and the whole of the remaining thirty thousand pounds to be
then paid over to Archibald with accumulated interest. In the event,
however, of the death of his godson, the entire property was devised to
another more distant and wealthier cousin, Mr. Newton, and his son
Charles, on precisely similar conditions, with the exception that an
annuity of seventy pounds, payable to Jesse Andrews and his wife during
their lives, was charged upon it.

Two letters were dispatched the same evening--one to the fortunate
cousin,