The contents of the telegram demanded his attention.

For some time they conveyed nothing to him. The thing might have been
written in Hindustani.

It would have been quite appropriate if it had been, for it was from
the promoters of the Calcutta Sweep, and it informed him that, as the
holder of ticket number 108,694, he had drawn Gelatine, and in
recognition of this fact a check for five hundred pounds would be
forwarded to him in due course.

* * * * *

Roland's first feeling was one of pure bewilderment. As far as he
could recollect, he had never had any dealings whatsoever with these
open-handed gentlemen. Then memory opened her flood-gates and swept
him back to a morning ages ago, so it seemed to him, when Mr. Fineberg's
eldest son Ralph, passing through the office on his way to borrow money
from his father, had offered him for ten shillings down a piece of
cardboard, at the same time saying something about a sweep. Partly
from a vague desire to keep in with the Fineberg clan, but principally
because it struck him as rather a doggish thing to do, Roland had
passed over the ten shillings; and there, as far as he had known,
the matter had ended.

And now, after all this time, that simple action had borne fruit in the
shape of Gelatine and a check for five hundred pounds.

Roland's next emotion was triumph. The sudden entry of checks for five
hundred pounds into a man's life is apt to produce this result.