"What! Per year?"
"No. The interest on £30,000 in North Western Railway stock would support a vessel well. You could easily support two."
"This girl's got bitten by a money-spending tarantula. Why you'd dance a million away in no time. Why, in the name of common sense, why should I support two vessels and their hulking crews—who chew tobacco, of course, don't they? To be sure, and hitch their slacks! Why should I support all these manly tars!"
"Now! I'll be angry. I'll tell you why. You know you have more money than you can ever spend. You promise me some, and you're very good, but I'd almost rather live on my own than have too much. Well, I can't bear to think of your dying—but you must die, my own good dear, and you will have to divide your money before you go. There will be a lot of heart-burning, and I'm afraid poor me won't come off very lightly if I am left behind you. You will want a memorial."
"You remember me and do as I would like you to do, and we sha'n't trouble our minds much about memorials. I thought of almshouses, though."
"Oh! uncle dear, and then the Charity Commissioners may come in, and give all your money to fat, comfortable tradesmen's children, or well-to-do professional men, instead of to your old people, and the clergyman will be master of your money; and the old people will not be grateful, and all will go wrong, and my dear uncle will be forgotten. Oh! no."
"I say, come, come; you're too knowing. You're trying to knock a pet scheme of mine on the head."
The old man was genuinely concerned, and he felt as if some prop had been knocked away from him. But his sweet niece soon brought him round. She had scared his vanity on purpose, and she now applied the antidote.
