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MR. HUMPHREYS AND HIS
INHERITANCE
ABOUT fifteen years ago, on a date late in August or early in September, a
train drew up at Wilsthorpe, a country station in Eastern England. Out of it stepped (with other passengers) a rather tall and reasonably good-looking young man, carrying a handbag and some papers tied up in a packet. He was expecting to be met, one would say, from the way in which he looked about him: and he was, as obviously, expected. The stationmaster
ran forward a step or two, and then, seeming to recollect himself, turned and beckoned to a stout and consequential person with a short round beard who was scanning the train with some appearance of bewilderment. “Mr. Cooper,” he called out,—“Mr. Cooper, I think
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