“Nichols?”
“J. Nichols. He said he knew you. He said he had told you about Uncle Ira leaving you his money.”
“Jerry Nichols! How on earth—Oh, I remember. He wrote to you, didn’t he?”
“He did. And this morning, just after you had left, he called.”
“Jerry Nichols called?”
“To tell me that Uncle Ira had made another will before he died, leaving the money to me.”
Their eyes met.
“So I stole his car and caught the train,” said Elizabeth simply.
Bill was recovering slowly from the news.
“But—this makes rather a difference, you know,” he said.
“In what way?”
“Well, what I mean to say is you’ve got five million dollars and I’ve got two thousand a year, don’t you know, and so—”
Elizabeth tapped him on the knee.
“Bill, do you see what this is in my hand?”
“Eh? What?”
“It’s a pin. And I’m going to dig it right into you wherever I think it will hurt most unless you stop being Harold at once. I’’ll tell you exactly what you’ve got to do, and you needn’t think you’re going to do anything else. When we get to New York we take the subway down to Brooklyn Bridge. We then walk to the City Hall, where you go to the window marked Marriage Licenses and buy one. It will set you back one dollar. You will give your correct age and name and you will hear mine. It will come as a shock to you to know that my second name is something awful! I’ve kept it concealed all my life. After we’ve done that we shall go to the only church that anybody could possibly be married at. It’s on Twenty-ninth Street, just round the corner from Fifth Avenue. It’s got a fountain playing in front of it, and it’s a little bit of Heaven dumped right down in the middle of New York. And after that—well, we might start looking about for that farm we’ve talked of. We can get a good farm for five million dollars, and leave something over to be doled out—cautiously—to Nutty. And then all we have to do is to live happily ever after.”
Something small and soft slipped itself into his hand, just as it had done ages and ages ago in Lady Wetherby’s wood.
It stimulated Bill’s conscience to one last remonstrance.
“But, I say, you know—”
“Well?”
“This business of the money, you know. What I mean to say is—Ow!”
He broke off, as a sharp pain manifested itself in the fleshy part of his leg. Elizabeth was looking at him reprovingly, her weapon poised for another onslaught.
“I told you!” she said.
“All right, I won’t do it again.”
“That’s a good child. Bill, listen. Come closer and tell me all sorts of nice things about myself till we get to Jamaica, and then I’ll tell you what I think of you. We’ve just passed Islip, so you’ve plenty of time.”
Colophon
Uneasy Money
was published in 1916 by
P. G. Wodehouse.
This ebook was transcribed and produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Asher Smith,
and is based on digital scans available at the
Internet Archive.
The cover page is adapted from
Long Island Homestead, Study from Nature,
a painting completed in 1859 by
Andrew W. Warren.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
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