’Oh, I’m prepared for the worst.  He’s cut me out altogether, eh?  That comes of me meddling with the girl’s affairs—­damnation!  When there wasn’t the least need, either.’

’A bad job.  The fact is, Percival had a letter from him at midday yesterday.  The senior had left the office; young Percival opened the letter, and spoke to me about it.  Now, prepare yourself.  The letter said that he had destroyed his former will, and would come to the office on Monday—­that’s to-marrow—­to give instructions for a new one.’

Joseph stood and stared.

‘To-morrow?  Why, then, there’s no will at all?’

‘An admirable deduction.  I congratulate you on your logic.’

Snowdon flung up his arms wildly, then began to leap about the room.

‘Try another glass,’ said Scawthorne.  ’There’s still a bottle in the cupboard; don’t be afraid.’

‘And you mean to tell me it’s all mine?’

‘The wine?  You’re very welcome.’

’Wine be damned!  The money, my boy, the money!  Scawthorne, I’m not a mean chap.  As sure as you and me stand here, you shall have—­you shall have a hundred pounds!  I mean it; dash me, I mean it!  You’ve been devilish useful to me; and what’s more I haven’t done with you yet.  Do you twig, old boy?’

’You mean that a confidential agent in England, unsuspected, may be needed?’

‘Shouldn’t wonder if I do.’

‘Can’t be managed under double the money, my good sir,’ observed Scawthorne, with unmistakable seriousness.  ’Worth your while, I promise you.  Have another glass.  Fair commission.  Think it over.’

‘Look here!  I shall have to make the girl an allowance.’

‘There’s the filter-works.  Don’t be stingy.’

Joseph was growing very red in the face.  He drank glass after glass; he flung his arms about; he capered.

’Damn me if you shall call me that, Scaw!  Two hundred it shall be.  But what was the old cove up to?  Why did he destroy the other will?  What would the new one have been?’

’Can’t answer either question, but it’s probably as well for you that to-morrow never comes.’

‘Now just see how things turn out!’ went on the other, in the joy of his heart.  ’All the thought and the trouble that I’ve gone through this last year, when I might have taken it easy and waited for chance to make me rich!  Look at Kirkwood’s business.  There was you and me knocking our heads together and raising lumps on them, as you may say, to find out a plan of keeping him and Jane apart, when all the while we’d nothing to do but to look on and wait, if only we’d known.  Now this is what I call the working of Providence, Scawthorne.  Who’s going to say after this, that things ain’t as they should be?  Everything’s for the best, my boy; I see that clearly enough.’

‘Decidedly,’ assented Scawthorne, with a smile.  ’The honest man is always rewarded in the long run.  And that reminds me; I too have had a stroke of luck.’