“But what’s it for?” she asked.
“It’s for me,” he said conclusively, and was going up to his room like a magpie with its treasure.
“Yes, but read the letter,” she urged.
He consented to sit down and study it. “Good God!” he blubbered soon. “Poor Dap’s dead.”
“Dead?” echoed Jinny mendaciously.
“You read it for yourself, dearie. An awful pity, a man in the prime of life. ’Tis from his boy in the Navy as he ast to send me three pounds what he owed me. That was wunnerful honest of him, to remember, seein’ as Oi don’t, aldoe Oi count the Lord put it into his heart, knowin’ Oi wanted money terrible bad. But Oi allus felt he was a good chap underneath: ’twarn’t his fault he had a glass eye. That made him look at the nose, like, and git frownin’ and quarrelsome. Three pound! That’s a good nest-egg.”
“Yes,” said Jinny, glad the death was passing off so peacefully, “and he’s sending me his telescope.”
“He don’t say that,” he said, peering at the letter again.
She turned red. “I had a line too—didn’t you notice yours had no stamp? I’ll change your order for you at the post office,” she went on hurriedly. Mentally she had worked out that two of the pounds represented the price of the new gravestone the Commander had never purchased, and the third his idea of interest for all these years. Doubtless he had been too tactful to send them back in his lifetime. Anyhow she agreed with her grandfather that it was really all the Lord’s doing, for nothing could be timelier. Even her poultry was now being steadily sacrificed, and this great sum would get her beautifully over Christmas and New Year and start that with a handsome balance in hand. But she had counted without her grandfather.
“No, you don’t!” The Gaffer’s hand closed grimly on the precious paper. “That’s a nest-egg, Oi’m tellin’ ye.”