Page:Burgess--Aint Angie awful.djvu/84

78 can always make up your mind that she has given up hope.

But we must cheer up and go on.

Old Gomorrah Bish, Angie’s grandfather had just died. Some had believed that he would live forever; others thought he had  already done so. Only once had he ever seen Angie; and then he was so spifflified that he had thought she was twins. So, in his deliritude, he decided to leave her twice as much as he had previously planned. He had fully intended to leave her nothing.

But he was so busy dying every day from 8 a.m. till 5 p.m., with only a half an hour  off for lunch, that he forgot to leave a will. So, as Gomorrah never had had any children of his own Angie, his only grandchild was  his sole heir.

This very morning her legacy had been received by mail. It was a big bright billion dollar bill. How Shakespeare would have loved that phrase! But oh dear, he will never know.

Why, then, was Angie so unhappy? One doesn’t get a billion dollars, you know, every  day. Sometimes weeks go by before you get it; and even then you don’t, do you? It