“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?”

“You don’t know law, my dear, or you wouldn’t talk nonsense about lawyers.  There are two ways.  One is to go myself to the present unlawful possessor and claim the whole.  It’s a woman; she would be certain to refuse, and then we should go to law, and very likely lose it all, although the right is on our side.  The other way is for some one—­say you—­to go to her and say:  ’I am that man’s daughter.  Here are my proofs.  Here are all his papers.  Give me back my own.’  That you could do in the interests of justice, though I own it is not the exact truth.”

“And if she refuses then?”

“She can’t refuse, with the man’s daughter actually standing before her.  She might make a fuss for a bit.  But she would have to give in at last.”

“Joe, consider.  You have got some papers, whatever they may contain.  Suppose that it is all true that you have told me—­”

“Lotty, my dear, when did I ever tell you an untruth?”

“When did you ever tell me the truth, my dear?  Don’t talk wild.  Suppose it is all true, how are you going to make out where your heiress has been all this time, and what she has been doing?”

“Trust me for that.”

“I trust you for making up something or other, but—­oh, Joe, you little think, you clever people, how seldom you succeed in deceiving any one.”

“I’ve got such a story for you, Lotty, as would deceive anybody.  Listen now.  It’s part truth, and part—­the other thing.  Your father—­”

“My father, poor dear man,” Lotty interrupted, “is minding his music-shop in Gloucester, and little thinking what wickedness his daughter is being asked to do.”

“Hang it! the girl’s father, then.  He died in America, where he went under another name, and you were picked up by strangers and reared under that name, in complete ignorance of your own family.  All which is true and can be proved.”

“Who brought her up?”

“People in America.  I’m one of ’em.”

“Who is to prove that?”

“I am.  I am come to England on purpose.  I am her guardian.”

“Who is to prove that you are the girl’s guardian?”