Page:The Works of H G Wells Volume 8.djvu/471

 'riginal money! Where is it now? Gone! And it's took young Walshingham with it, and 'e's gone too. It's like playing skittles. 'Long comes the ball, right and left you fly, and there it is rolling away and not changed a bit. No sense in it! 'E's gone, and she's gone—gone off with that chap Revel, that sat with me at dinner. Merried man! And Chit'low rich! Lor'!—what a fine place that Gerrik Club is to be sure, where I 'ad lunch wiv' 'im! Better'n any 'otel. Footmen in powder they got—not waiters, Ann—footmen! 'E's rich and me rich—in a sort of way Don't seem much sense in it, Ann, 'owever you look at it." He shook his head.

"I know one thing," said Kipps.

"What?"

"I'm going to put it in jest as many different banks as I can. See? Fifty 'ere, fifty there. 'Posit. I'm not going to 'nvest it—no fear."

"It's only frowing money away," said Ann.

"I'm 'arf a mind to bury some of it under the shop. Only I expect one 'ud always be coming down at nights to make sure it was there I don't seem to trust any one—not with money." He put the cheque on the table corner and smiled and tapped his pipe on the grate, with his eyes on that wonderful document. "S'pose old Bean started orf," he reflected "One thing, 'e is a bit lame."

E wouldn't," said Ann; "not 'im."

"I was only joking like." He stood up, put his pipe among the candlesticks on the mantel, took up the cheque and began folding it carefully to put it back in his pocket-book.