Page:Stubbs's Calendar or The Fatal Boots.djvu/84

70 was half stifled with their embraces, and slobbered all over with their tears.

"Dearest mamma," said I, "I am very glad to see the noble manner in which you bear your loss; and more still to know that you are so rich as to be able to put up with it." The fact was, I really thought the old lady had got a private hoard of her own, as many of them have—a thousand pounds or so in a stocking. Had she put by thirty pounds a year, as well she might, for the thirty years of her marriage, there would have been nine hundred pounds clear, and no mistake. But still I was angry to think that any such paltry concealment had been practised—concealment too of my money; so I turned on her pretty sharply and continued my speech. "You say, ma’am, that you are rich, and that Pump and Aldgate’s failure has no effect upon you. I am very happy to hear you say so, ma’am—very happy that you are rich; and I should like to know where your property, my father’s property, for you had none of your own,—I should like to know where this money lies—where you have concealed