"My granfaver it was," said Kipps, trying hard to be calm and simple. "'Ardly knew I 'ad a granfaver. And then—bang! When o' Bean, the solicitor, told me of it, you could 'ave knocked me down——"
"'Ow much?" demanded Sid, with a sharp note in his voice.
"Twelve 'undred pound a year—'proximately, that is...."
Sid's attempt at genial unenvious congratulation did not last a minute. He shook hands with an unreal heartiness and said he was jolly glad. "It's a blooming stroke of Luck," he said.
"It's a bloomin' stroke of Luck," he repeated; "that's what it is," with the smile fading from his face. "Of course, better you 'ave it than me, o' chap. So I don't envy you, anyhow. I couldn't keep it, if I did 'ave it."
"'Ow's that?" said Kipps, a little hipped by Sid's patent chagrin.
"I'm a Socialist, you see," said Sid. "I don't 'old with Wealth. What is Wealth? Labour robbed out of the poor. At most it's only yours in Trust. Leastways, that 'ow I should take it." He reflected. "The Present distribution of Wealth," he said and stopped.
Then he let himself go, with unmasked bitterness. "It's no sense at all. It's jest damn foolishness. Who's going to work and care in a muddle like this? Here first you do—something anyhow—of the world's work, and it pays you hardly anything, and then it invites you to do nothing, nothing whatever, and pays you twelve hundred pounds a year. Who's going to respect laws and customs when they come to damn silliness like that?" He repeated, "Twelve hundred pounds a year!"
At the sight of Kipps' face he relented slightly.