Did you ever read in story books, Lizzie, how a fellow's blood is said to run cold? I never knew the meaning of it till that moment. What need had Penitent Magdalens of the money compared to my own? The senile old curmudgeon grinned at me like a skull.

"You will become possessed of the funds held in trust when you have spent six months in gainful employment, precisely according to your late uncle's instructions. Should you fail…"

Gainful employment? I was not even sure, just then, quite what the term meant. A chap who bets a sov or two on the nags, or lays a wager at baccarat, may gain. Then again, he may lose. I need not have worried, however. My Uncle Brandon had left me no choice.

"Gainful employment!" sneered old Silas Raven. "On Monday next you will take up your post as Assistant Director of Greystones Female Reformatory on the Sussex coast. You will remain thus occupied until further instructions, confided to me by your uncle, are given you."

"Look here!" said I crossly, "suppose they won't have me at this place, wherever it is? Dammit, it ain't justice to bilk a fellow of his inheritance when he can't do what's ordered."

"Have no fear," answered the old swine softly, "your uncle was a benefactor of the Greystones charity. Arrangements are already made for you."

"The devil they are!" said I, quite taken aback.

"Very uncongenial to a shiftless young man of your habits, no doubt!" he murmured, "yet make no mistake, sir! Fail to fulfil the condition and I will see you cut from your uncle's will!"

He would too, I never doubted that! So I left his chambers, descended the steep wooden stairs of the old building, and turned away under the broad trees of Gray's Inn Walk, which were just then coming into early leaf.

All the way back to Jermyn Street in the cab I tried to puzzle out why a randy old uncle I had never seen should leave me all his spondoolicks, and on such conditions. What could it possibly matter to him if I spent a few months supervising the girls of Greystones, or working at some other profession, or doing nothing at all? Why not leave a chap the load of oof, as they say, and be done with it? Why blight his life by taking him away from the London season and sending him off to the seaside, where he might die of tedium?