"My stars!" said Geordie. And he stared aghast at a square piece of paper, which he had reason to believe represented two hundred pounds. "My stars! what a pot o' money!"
He gasped and took another drink.
"I'm the owner of the Patriarch," he said, and grasping all the letters and his two-hundred-pound draft he rammed them down into the bottom of his inside breast-pocket. "I'm the owner of—hic—the—hic—Patriarch."
He came out of his corner and went to the bar.
"Gimme a drink—an expensive drink, one that'll cost five bob," he demanded of the barman.
"You'd better have a bottle o' brandy," said the barman.
"I wants the best."
"This is Hennessy's forty star brandy," said the liar behind the bar. "There's no better in the world."
And Geordie retreated with the bottle to his corner and took a long drink of a poisonous compound which contained as much insanity in it as a small lunatic asylum. He came back to the bar presently and told the barman that he was a millionaire.
"I own half Newcastle and a lot of Bourke Street, Melbourne, and a baker's dozen of ships, and lumps of London!" said Geordie.