“Dear me!” cried Mrs Gaff petulantly, “every mortial thing that has to do with money seeps to depend. Could ye not tell me somethin’ about it, now, that doesn’t depend?”
“Not easily,” replied Kenneth with a laugh; “but I was going to say that if you get it invested at five per cent, that would give you an income of five hundred pounds a year.”
“How much?” inquired Mrs Gaff in a high key, while her eyes widened with astonishment.
Kenneth repeated the sum.
“Young man, you’re jokin’.”
“Indeed I am not,” said Kenneth earnestly, with an appealing glance at Gildart.
“True—as Johnson’s Dictionary,” said the middy. Mrs Gaff spent a few moments in silent and solemn reflection.
“The Independent clergyman,” she said in a low meditative tone, “has only two hundred a year—so I’m told; an’ the doctor at the west end has got four hundred, and he keeps a fine house an’ servants; an’ Sam Balls, the rich hosier, has got six hundred—so they say; and Mrs Gaff, the poor critter, has only got five hundred! That’ll do,” she continued, with a sudden burst of animation, “shake out the reefs in yer tops’ls, lass, slack off yer sheets, ease the helm, an’ make the most on it while the fair wind lasts.”
Having thus spoken, Mrs Gaff hastily folded up in a napkin the sum just given her, and put it, along with the bank-book, into the tea-caddy, which she locked and deposited safely in the corner cupboard. Immediately after, her visitors, much surprised at her eccentric conduct, rose and took their leave.