I then told him how much gold there was, and from my pockets brought out the watches and the English knife.
“This last,” I said, “is the only thing that I am giving you; the rest is all from our father. I have many many times as much gold myself, and this is legally your property as much as mine is mine.”
George was aghast, but he was powerless alike to express his feelings, or to refuse the gold.
“Do you mean to say that my father left me this by his will?”
“Certainly he did,” said I, inventing a pious fraud.
“It is all against my oath,” said he, looking grave.
“Your oath be hanged,” said I. “You must give the gold to the Mayor, who knows that it was coming, and it will appear to the world, as though he were giving it you now instead of leaving you anything.”
“But it is ever so much too much!”
“It is not half enough. You and the Mayor must settle all that between you. He and our father talked it all over, and this was what they settled.”
“And our father planned all this, without saying a word to me about it while we were on our way up here?”