“How good of him. I hope it was a pretty one.”
“Father said, ‘There’s a fortune there.’ And Mother said, ‘Oh, Dally, it’s as if it was left in trust for poor Union Town.’”
When the gardener next met Mr. Tring, he discovered how entirely sufficient for two are the opinions of one.
“Of course I’m awfully lucky, in a way,” said Mr. Tring. “It’s a big inheritance, and hardly damaged at all by the earthquake. But at present, of course, it’s all responsibility and no returns. I feel as if it’s sort of left me in trust for Union Town.”
“That’s one way of looking at it,” said Courtesy—surely the least witty comment ever invented.
“I don’t agree with you at all,” said Mrs. Rust, who now made this remark mechanically in any pause in the conversation.
“You consider that Mr. Tring should pile up a big bill against the British Government?” suggested the gardener.
“Stuff and nonsense,” said Mrs. Rust. “I consider the niggers can eat—mangoes.”
“I sometimes wonder,” said the gardener, “whether one has a duty to oneself. One feels as if one has, but I always—in theory—distrust a duty that pays.”
“Certainly one has a duty to oneself,” said Courtesy. “Duty begins at home. That’s in the Bible, isn’t it?”