"What does it matter, Joe, how much it is, if it is neither yours nor mine?"
"It matters this: that it ought all to be mine."
"How can that be, if it was not left to you?"
Joe was nothing if not a man of resource. He therefore replied without hesitation or confusion:
"The money was left to a certain man and to his heirs. That man is dead. His heiress should have succeeded, but she was kept out of her rights. She is dead, and I am her cousin, and entitled to all her property, because she made no will."
"Is that gospel truth, Joe? Is she dead? Are you sure?"
"Quite sure," he replied. "Dead as a door-nail."
"Is that the way you got the papers?"
"That's the way, Lotty."
"Then why not go to a lawyer and make him take up the case for you, and honestly get your own?"