I.

Bill Napper was a heavy man of something between thirty-five and forty. His moleskin trousers were strapped below the knees, and he wore his coat loose on his back, with the sleeves tied across his chest. The casual observer set him down a navvy, but Mrs. Napper punctiliously made it known that he was “in the paving;” which meant that he was a paver. He lived in Canning Town, and was on a foot-path job at West Ham (Allen was the contractor) when he won and began to wear the nickname “Squire.”

Daily at the stroke of twelve from the neighboring church, Bill Napper’s mates let drop rammer, trowel, spade, and pick, and turned toward a row of basins, tied in blue-and-red handkerchiefs, and accompanied of divers tin cans with smoky bottoms. Bill himself looked toward the street corner for the punctual Polly bearing his own dinner fresh and hot; for home was not far, and Polly, being thirteen, had no school now.

One day Polly was nearly ten minutes late. Bill, at first impatient, grew savage, and thought wrathfully on the strap on its nail by the kitchen dresser. But at the end of the ten minutes Polly came, bringing a letter as well as the basin-load of beef and cabbage. A young man had left it, she said, after asking many ill-mannered questions. The letter was addressed “W. Napper, Esq.,” with a flourish; the words, “By hand,” stood in the corner of the envelope, and on the flap at the back were the embossed characters “T. & N.” These things Bill Napper noted several times over, as he turned the letter about in his hand.

“Seems to me you’ll ‘ave to open it after all,” said one of Bill’s mates; and he opened it, setting back his hat as a preparation to serious study. The letter was dated from Old jewry, and ran thus:

“re” B. Napper, deceased.

“Dear Sir — We have a communication in this matter from our correspondents at Sydney, New South Wales, in respect to testamentary dispositions under which you benefit. We shall be obliged if you can make it convenient to call at this office any day except Saturday between two and four.

“Your obedient servants,

“Tims & Norton.”

The dinner hour had gone by before the full inner meaning had been wrested from this letter. “B. Napper, deceased,” Bill accepted, with a little assistance, as an announcement of the death of his brother Ben, who had gone to Australia nearly twenty years ago, and had been forgotten. “Testamentary dispositions” nobody would tackle with confidence, although its distinct suggestion of biblical study was duly remarked. “Benefit” was right enough, and led one of the younger men; after some thought, to the opinion that Bill Napper’s brother might have left him something; a theory instantly accepted as the most probable, although some thought it foolish of him not to leave it direct instead of authorizing the interference of a lawyer, who would want to do Bill out of it.

Bill Napper put up his tools, and went home. There the missis put an end to doubt by repeating what the lawyer’s clerk said, which was nothing more definite than that Bill had been “left a bit”; and the clerk only acknowledged so much when he had satisfied himself, by sinuous questionings, that he had found the real legatee. He further advised the bringing of certain evidence on the visit to the office. Thus it was plain that the Napper fortunes were in good case, for, as “a bit” means money all the world over, the thing was clearly no worthless keepsake.
ii.

ON the afternoon of the next day, Bill Napper, in clean moleskins and black coat, made for Old Jewry. On mature consideration he had decided to go through it alone. There was not merely one lawyer, which would be bad enough, but two of them in a partnership; and to take the missis, whose intellects, being somewhat flighty, were quickly divertible by the palaver of which a lawyer was master, would be to distract and impede his own faculties. A male friend might not have been so bad, but Bill could not call to mind one quite cute enough to be of any use, and in any case such a friend would have to be paid for the loss of his day’s work. Moreover, he might imagine himself to hold a sort of interest in the proceeds. So Bill Napper went alone.

Having waited the proper time without the bar in the clerk’s office, he was shown into a room where a middle-aged man sat at a writing-table. There was no other lawyer to be seen. This was a stratagem for which Bill Napper was not prepared. He looked suspiciously about the room, but without discovering anything that looked like a hiding-place. Plainly there were two lawyers, because their names were on the door and on the letter itself; and the letter said we. Why one should hide it was hard to guess, unless it were to bear witness to some unguarded expression. Bill Napper resolved to speak little, and not loud.

The lawyer addressed him affably, inviting him to sit. Then he asked to see the papers that Bill had brought. These were an old testimonial reciting that Bill had been employed “with his brother Benjamin” as a boy in a brick-field, and had given satisfaction; a letter from a parish guardian, the son of an old employer of Bill’s father, certifying that Bill was his father’s son and his brother’s brother; copies of the birth registry of both Bill and his brother procured that morning; and a letter from Australia, the last word from Benjamin, dated eighteen years back. These Bill produced in succession, keeping a firm grip on each as he placed it beneath the lawyer’s nose. The lawyer behaved somewhat testily under this restraint, but Bill knew better than to let the papers out of his possession, and would not be done.

When he had seen all —“Well, Mr. Napper,” said the lawyer, rather snappishly (obviously he was balked), “these things seem all right, and with the inquiries I have already made, I suppose I may proceed to pay you the money. It is a legacy of three hundred pounds. Your brother was married, and I believe his business and other property goes to his wife and children. The money is intact, the estate paying legacy duty and expenses. In cases of this sort there is sometimes an arrangement for the amount to be paid a little at a time as required; that, however, I judge, would not be an arrangement to please you. I hope, at any rate, you will be able to invest the money in a profitable way. I will draw a check.”

Three hundred pounds was beyond Bill Napper’s wildest dreams. But he would not be dazzled out of his caution. Presently the lawyer tore the check from the book and pushed It across the table with another paper. He offered Bill a pen, pointing with his other hand at the bottom of the second paper, and saying: “This is the receipt. Sign just there, please.”

Bill took up the check, but made no movement toward the pen. “Receipt?” he grunted, softly; “receipt wot for? I ain’t ‘ad no money.”

“There’s the check in your hand — the same thing. It’s an order to the bank to hand you the amount — the usual way of paying money in business affairs. If you would rather have the money paid here, I can send a clerk to the bank to get it. Give me the check.”

But again Bill was not to be done. The lawyer, finding him sharper than he expected, now wanted to get this tricky piece of paper back. So Bill only grinned at him, keeping a good hold of the check. The lawyer lost his temper. “Why, damn it,” he said, “you’re a curious person to deal with. D’ye want the money and the check too?”

He rang a bell twice, and a clerk appeared. “Mr. Dixon,” said the lawyer, “I have given this person a check for three hundred pounds. Just take him round to the bank, and get it cashed. Let him sign the receipt at the bank. I suppose,” he added, turning to Bill, “that you won’t object to giving a receipt when you get the money, eh?”

Bill Napper, conscious of his victory, expressed his willingness to do the proper thing at the proper time, and went out with the clerk. At the bank there was little difficulty, except at the clerk’s advice to take the money chiefly in notes, which instantly confirmed Bill in a determination to accept nothing but gold. When all was done, and three hundred sovereigns, carefully counted over for the third and fourth time, were stowed in small bags about his person, Bill, much relieved after his spell of watchfulness, insisted on standing the clerk a drink.

“Ah,” he said, “all you city lawyers an’ clurks are pretty bleed’n’ sharp, I know, but you ain’t done me, an’ I don’t bear no malice. ‘Ave wot you like —‘ave wine or a six o’ Irish — I ain’t goin’ to be stingy. I’m goin’ to do it open an’ free, I am, an’ set a example to men o’ property.”
iii.

Bill Napper went home in a hansom, ordering a barrel of beer on the way. One of the chief comforts of affluence is that you may have beer in by the barrel; for then Sundays and closing times vex not, and you have but to reach the length of your arm for another pot whenever moved thereunto. Nobody in Canning Town had beer by the barrel except the tradesmen, and for that Bill had long envied the man who kept shop. And now, at his first opportunity, he bought a barrel of thirty-six gallons.

Once home with the news, and Canning Town was ablaze. Bill Napper had came in for three thousand, thirty thousand, three hundred thousand — any number of thousands that were within the compass of the gossip’s command of enumeration. Bill Napper was called “W. Napper, Esq.”— he was to be knighted — he was a long-lost baronet — anything. Bill Napper came home in a hansom — a brougham-state coach.

Mrs. Napper went that very evening to the Grove at Stratford to buy silk and satin, green, red and yellow — cutting her neighbors dead, right and left. And by the next morning tradesmen had sent circulars and samples of goods. Mrs. Napper was for taking a proper position in society, and a house in a fashionable part — Barking Road, for instance, or even East India Road, Poplar; but Bill would have none of such foolishness. He wasn’t proud, and Canning Town was quite good enough for him. This much, though, he conceded: that the family should take a whole house of five rooms in the next street, instead of the two rooms and a cellule upstairs now rented.

That morning Bill lighted his pipe, stuck his hands in his pockets, and strolled as far as his job. “Wayo, squire,” shouted one of the men as he approached. “‘Ere comes the bleed’n’ toff,” remarked another.

“‘Tcheer, ‘tcheer, mates,” Bill responded, calmly complacent. “I’m a-goin to wet it.” And all the fourteen men left their paving for the beer-house close by. The foreman made some demur, but was helpless, and ended by coming himself. “Now then, gaffer,” said Bill, “none o’ your sulks. No one ain’t a-goin’ to stand out of a drink o’ mine — unless ‘e wants to fight. As for the job — damn the job! I’d buy up fifty jobs like that ’ere and not stop for the change. You send the guv’nor to me if ‘e says anythink; unnerstand? You send ’im to me.” And he laid hands on the foreman, who was not a big man, and hauled him after the others.

They wetted it for two or three hours, from many part pots. Then there appeared between the swing doors the wrathful face of the guv’nor.

The gov’nor’s position was difficult. He was only a small master, and but a few years back had been a working mason. This deserted job was his first for the parish, and by contract he was bound to end it quickly under penalty. Moreover, he much desired something on account that week, and must stand well with the vestry. On the other hand, this was a time of strikes, and the air was electrical. Several large and successful movements had quickened a spirit of restlessness in the neighborhood, and no master was sure of his men. Some slight was fancied, something was not done as it should have been done from the point of view of the workshop, and there was a strike, picketing, and bashing. Now, the worst thing that could have happened to the guv’nor at this moment was one of those tiny unrecorded strikes that were bursting out weekly and daily about him, with the picketing of his two or three jobs. Furious, therefore, as he was, he dared not discharge every man on the spot. So he stood in the door, and said: “Look here, I won’t stand this sort of thing — it’s a damn robbery. I’ll —”

“That’s all right, ol’ cock,” roared Bill Napper, reaching toward the guv’nor. “You come an’ ‘ave a tiddley. I’m a bleed’n’ millionaire meself now, but I ain’t proud. What, you won’t?”— for the guv’nor, unenthusiastic, remained at the door. “You’re a sulky old bleeder. These ’ere friends o’ mine are ‘avin’ ‘arf a day auf at my expense; unnerstand? My expense. I’m a-payin’ for their time, if you dock ’em; an’ I can give you a bob, me fine feller, if you’r ‘ard up. See?”

The guv’nor addressed himself to the foreman. “What’s the meaning o’ this, Walker?” he said. “What game d’ye call it?”

Bill Napper, whom a succession of pots had made uproarious, slapped the foreman violently on the shoulder. “This ’ere’s the gaffer,” he shouted. “‘E’s all right. ‘E come ’ere ‘cos ‘e couldn’t ‘elp isself. I made ’im come, forcible. Don’t you bear no spite agin the gaffer, d’y’ear? ‘E’s my mate, is the gaffer; an’ I could buy you up, forty times, s’elp me — but I ain’t proud. An’ you’re a bleed’n’ gaw-blimy slackbacked . . .!”

“Well,” said the guv’no............