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 the 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 come 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—a 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 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 lit 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.