"Old stepfather's wiry yet, he may last an age, and this is getting a horrid, humdrum life.

I wonder what he'll leave me, when he does go off?
Mother said one day she thought it wouldn't be more than five hundred pounds.

_She_ doesn't know; he does not tell her about his private affairs--never has told her.

Five hundred pounds! If he left me a paltry sum such as that, I'd fling it in the heir's face--Master Lionel's." He put a piece of the thorn into his mouth, bit it up, spat it out again, and went on with his soliloquy.
"I had better go.

Why, if nothing to speak of does come to me from old Verner, this money of John's would be a perfect windfall.