"_The real and personal estate now amounting to something over Five Millions of Pounds Sterling, we should esteem it a favour if you could make it convenient to call upon us any day this week in order that we may go through the necessary formalities together. The larger bulk of the cash is lodged in the Bank of England, and a considerable amount is placed in French government securities. We should prefer going into further details with you personally rather than by letter. Trusting you will call on us without delay, we are, Sir, yours obediently...._" Five Millions! I, the starving literary hack,--the friendless, hopeless, almost reckless haunter of low newspaper dens,--I, the possessor of "over Five Millions of Pounds Sterling"! I tried to grasp the astounding fact,--for fact it evidently was,--but could not. It seemed to me a wild delusion, born of the dizzy vagueness which lack of food engendered in my brain. I stared round the room;--the mean miserable furniture,--the fireless grate,--the dirty lamp,--the low truckle bedstead,--the evidences of penury and want on every side;--and then,--then the overwhelming contrast between the poverty that environed me and the news I had just received, struck me as the wildest, most ridiculous incongruity I had ever heard of or imagined,--and I gave vent to a shout of laughter. "Was there ever such a caprice of mad Fortune!" I cried aloud--"Who would have imagined it! Good God! I! I, of all men in the world to be suddenly chosen out for this luck! By Heaven!--If it is all true, I'll make society spin round like a top on my hand before I am many months older!" And I laughed loudly again; laughed just as I had previously sworn, simply by way of relief to my feelings. Some one laughed in answer,--a laugh that seemed to echo mine. I checked myself abruptly, somewhat startled, and listened. Rain poured outside, and the wind shrieked like a petulant shrew,--the violinist next door was practising a brilliant roulade up and down his instrument,--but there were no other sounds than these. Yet I could have sworn I heard a man's deep-chested laughter close behind me where I stood.