Verstage, his father, goes and makes the sum bigger by addin'
fifty pounds to her hundred, so now there's this tidy little sum
lies doin no good to nobody."

"I cannot help you. You cannot touch the principal till the child
is of age, and then it will go to the child, and not you."

"Why! that's twenty-one years hence. That's what I call reg'lar
foreright (awkward); and worse than foreright, it's unreasonable.
The child is that owdacious in the cradle, I shouldn't be surprised
when he's of age he would deny me the money."

"The interest will be paid to you."

"What is that--perhaps sixpence in the year. Better than nuthin',
but I want the lot of it. Look you here, Master Barelegs, I know
very well that I owe you money. I know very well that unless I can
raise two hundred pounds, and that pretty smart, I shall have to
mortgage my little bit of land to you. I don't forget that. But
I daresay you'd rather have the money down than my poor little
bit of lean and ribby take out o' the common. You shall have the
money if you'll help me to get it. If I can't get that money into
my fingers--I'm a done man. But it's not only that as troubles me.
It is that the Rocliffes, and the Snellings, and the Boxalls, and
Jamaica Cheel will make my life miserable. They'll mock at me, and
I shall be to them just as ridic'lous an object as was Thomas
Rocliffe after he'd lost his Countess. That's twenty-three years
agone, and he can't get over it. Up comes the Countess Charlotte
on every occasion, whenever any one gets across with him. It will
be the same with me. I told 'em all to their faces that I had got
them into my power, and just as the net was about to snap--then
the breaking of the bank upset all my reckonings, and spoiled the
little game--and what is worse, has made me their sport. But I
won't stand no nonsense from old Clutch, nor will I from them."

"I confess I do not quite understand about this money. Was it left
by will?"

"Left by will right enough," answered Bideabout. "You see the old
woman, Sanna Verstage, had a bit of property of her own when she
married, and then, when it came to her dyin', she set to write a
will, and wanted to leave a hundred pounds to the little twoad.
But she called up and consulted Simon, and he sed, 'Put on another
fifty, Sanna, and I'll make that up. I always had a likin' for
Matabel.' So that is how it came about as I've heard, and a
hundred pound came out of her estate, and Simon made up th