mirth or contentment, was singular enough. He was a little man, and, being half
doubled up as he lay in bed, looked about as long as he ought to have been without
his legs. He had a great red pipe in his mouth, and was smoking, and staring at the
rushlight, in a state of enviable placidity.
Er volgt dan een gesprek tussen Sam en deze schoenlapper, waarbij de schoenlapper
aan Sam zelfs puzzeltjes op geeft, waarom hij gevangen zou zitten. Na enige heen en
weer gepraat volgt:
"Just this," replied the cobbler, speaking through his nose in an intense enjoyment
of his pipe; "an old gentleman that I worked for, down in he country, and a humble
relation of whose I married - she's dead, God bless her, and thank Him for it-- was
seized with a fit and went off."
"Where?" inquired Sam, who was growing sleepy after the numerous events of the
day.
"How should I know where he went?" said the cobbler, speaking through his nose
in an intense enjoyment of his pipe. "He went off dead."
"Oh, trat indeed," said Sam. "Well?"
"Well," said the cobbler, "he left five thousand pound behind him."
"And wery gen-teel in him to do so," said Sam.
"One of which," continued the cobbler, "he left to me, cause I'd married his
relation, you see."
"Wery good," mumured Sam.
"And being surrounded by a great number of nieces and nevys, as was always
quarrelling and fighting among themselves for the property, he makes me his
executor, and leaves the rest to me: in trust, to divide it among'em as the will
prowided."
"Wot do you mean by leavin' it on trust?" inquired Sam, waking up a little. "If it ain't
ready money, where's the use on it?"
"It's a law term, that's all,"said the cobbler.
"I don't think that," said Sam, shaking his head. "There's wery little trust in that shop.
"Hows'ever, go on."
"Well", said the cobbler: "when I was going to take out a probate of the will, the
nieces and nevys, who was desperately disappointed at not getting all the money,
enters a caveat against it."
"Wha's that?" inquired Sam.
"A legal instrument, which is as much as to say, it's no go," replied the cobbler.
"I see," said Sam, "a sort of brother-in-law o1 the have-his-carcase. Well?"
"But," continued the cobbler, "finding that they couldn't agree among themselves,
and consequently couldn't get up a case against the will, they withdrew the caveat,
and I paid all the legacies. I'd hardly done it, when one nevy brings an action to set
the will aside, the case comes on some months afterwards afore a deaf old
gentleman, in a back room somewhere down by St. Paul's Churchyard; and arter four
counsels had taken a day a-piece to bother him regularly, he takes a week or two to
consider, and read the evidence in six volumes, and then gives his judgement that
how the testator was not quite right in his head, and i must pay all the money back
again, and all the costs. I appealed; the case came on before three or four ven/
sleepy gentlemen, who had heard it all before in the other court, where they're
