P. G. Wodehouse: Uneasy Money

Chapter 25 (continued)

Elizabeth caught a fleeting glimpse of the cover.

'I bet there's a story in there of a man named Harold who was too proud to marry a girl, though he loved her, because she was rich and he wasn't. You wouldn't be so silly as that, Bill, would you?'

'It's the other way about with me.'

'No, it's not. Bill, do you know a man named Nichols?'

'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?'