The Lost Heir

Dawkins looked at the instruction. It contained the words: "To John Simcoe, at present residing at 132 Jermyn Street, I bequeath the sum of ten thousand pounds, as a token of my gratitude for his heroic conduct in saving my life at the cost of great personal injury to himself from the grip of a tiger, in the year 1831."

"By Jove, he has done well for himself!" Dawkins muttered, as he sat down to his desk after the managing clerk had handed him the General's will from the iron box containing papers and documents relating to his affairs. "Ten thousand pounds! I wish I could light upon a general in a fix of some sort, though I don't know that I should care about a tiger. It is wonderful what luck some men have. I ought to get something out of this, if I could but see my way to it. Fancy the keeper of a billiard room and gaming house coming in for such a haul as this! It is disgusting!"

He set about preparing a draft of the will, but he found it difficult to keep his attention fixed upon his work, and when the chief clerk ran his eye over it he looked up in indignant surprise.

"What on earth is the matter with you, Mr. Dawkins? The thing is full of the most disgraceful blunders. In several cases it is not even sense. During all the time that I have been in this office I have never had such a disgraceful piece of work come into my hands before. Why, if the office boy had been told to make a copy of the will, he would have done it vastly better. What does it mean?"

"I am very sorry, sir," Dawkins said, "but I don't feel very well to-day, and I have got such a headache that I can scarcely see what I am writing."

"Well, well," his superior said, somewhat mollified, "that will account for it. I thought at first that you must have been drinking. You had better take your hat and be off. Go to the nearest chemist and take a dose, and then go home and lie down. You are worse than of no use in the state that you are. I hope that you will be all right in the morning, for we are, as you know, very busy at present, and cannot spare a hand. Tear up that draft and hand the will and instructions to Mr. Macleod. The General will be down here at ten o'clock to-morrow to see it; he is like most military men, sharp and prompt, and when he wants a thing done he expects to have it done at once."