“‘A dead man!’ cried the doctor, running to Jericho.
“‘My friend,’ exclaimed Candytuft, ‘have you made your will?’
“‘Eh? What’s the matter?’ said Jericho.
“‘Matter!’ exclaimed Dr. Dodo, and he pointed his cane to the hole in the front of Jericho’s coat, immediately over the region of his heart. ‘Matter! It’s the first time I ever heard a man with a bullet clean through his breast ask—What’s the matter!’”
The Colonel’s ball had passed through Jericho’s bank-note-paper breast, and Jericho lived and moved and was none the worse for it. Jericho fired in the air.
An ugly atmosphere was collecting about Mr. Jericho, and he was aware of it. “His own family saw in him a man of mysterious attributes. Monica turned pale at the smallest courtesy of her parent, and Agatha, suddenly meeting him on the staircase, squealed and ran away as from a fiend.
“Mr. Jericho went on a rejoicing conqueror. His huge town mansion, burning with gold—massive, rich, and gorgeous; for the Man of Money was far the most substantial, the most potent development of his creed, whereby to awe and oppress his worshippers——”
Mrs. Jericho had made up her mind that it was time her daughters were “settled in life, and she said as much to her husband.”
“‘Your girls, my dear, have my free permission to settle when and where they like,’ said the husband.