"Two thousand a year: hasn't he got two thousand a year?--the General
says he has."

"My dear friend," shrieked out the Major, with an eagerness which this
gentleman rarely showed, "thank you!--thank you!--I begin to see now.--
Two thousand a year! Why, his mother has but five hundred a year in the
world.--She is likely to live to eighty, and Arthur has not a shilling
but what she can allow him."

"What! he ain't rich then?" Foker asked.

"Upon my honour he has no more than what I say."

"And you ain't going to leave him anything?"

The Major had sunk every shilling he could scrape together on an annuity,
and of course was going to leave Pen nothing; but he did not tell Foker
this. "How much do you think a Major on half-pay can save?" he asked. "If
these people have been looking at him as a fortune, they are utterly
mistaken-and-and you have made me the happiest man in the world."

"Sir to you," said Mr. Foker, politely, and when they parted for the
night they shook hands with the greatest cordiality; the younger
gentleman promising the elder not to leave Chatteris without a further
conversation in the morning. And as the Major went up to his room, and
Mr. Foker smoked his cigar against the door pillars of the George, Pen,
very likely, ten miles off; was lying in bed kissing the letter from his
Emily.

The next morning, before Mr. Foker drove off in his drag, the insinuating