Home › All Sorts and Conditions of Men › All Sorts and Conditions of Men

All Sorts and Conditions of Men

By WALTER BESANT Condensation by CHARLES H. LINCOLN THE girl was the greatest heiress in England. On the morrow she was to leave the university where, in anticipation of assuming the responsibility of her fortune, she had acquired all of the theory of political economy that text-books could give her. Speaking to a girl friend, she summed up the sources of her wealth: "To begin with, there is the brewery. You cannot escape from a big brewery if it belongs to you. You cannot hide it away. Messenger, Marsden & Company's Stout, their XXX, their Old and Mild, their Bitter, their Family Ales (that particularly at eight-and-six the nine-gallon cask, if paid for on delivery), their drays, their huge horses, their strong men--these things stare one in the face wherever you go. I am Messenger, Marsden & Company, myself, the sole partner in what my lawyer sweetly calls the Concern." Also there was an unconscionable sum of money in the Funds. And whole streets of houses. They lay all about Whitechapel way. Her grandfather had bought houses just as other people buy apples.