property, real and personal, had been comparatively simple and speedy.
But--what was it worth? What would the two trustees have been able to
hand over to the Mayor and Corporation of Barford, if the will had been
found as soon as John Mallathorpe died? Pratt, from what he remembered
of the bulk and calculations at the time, made a rapid estimate. As near
as he could reckon, the Mayor and Corporation would have got about
L300,000.

That, then--and this was what he wanted to get at--was what these young
people would lose if he produced the will. Nay!--on second thoughts, it
would be much more, very much more in some time; for the manufacturing
business was being carried on by them, and was apparently doing as well
as ever. It was really an enormous amount which they would lose--and
they would get--what? Ten thousand apiece and their mother a like sum.
Thirty thousand pounds in all--in comparison with hundreds of thousands.
But they would have no choice in the matter. Nothing could upset that
will.

He began to think of the three people whom the production of this will
would dispossess. He knew little of them beyond what common gossip had
related at the time of John Mallathorpe's sudden death. They had lived
in very quiet fashion, somewhere on the outskirts of the town, until
this change in their fortunes. Once or twice Pratt had seen Mrs.
Mallathorpe in her carriage in the Barford streets--somebody had pointed
her out to him, and had observed sneeringly that folk can soon adapt
themselves to circumstances, and that Mrs. Mallathorpe now gave herself
all the airs of a duchess, though she had been no more than a hospital
nurse before she married Richard Mallathorpe. And Pratt had also seen
young Harper Mallathorpe now and then in the town--since the good
fortune arrived--and had envied him: he had also thought what a strange