Ay, and
some of them not so very distant kinsfolk either. Think of the hosts
of illegitimate children, for instance--some who know who they are,
and some who don't."
This was said so significantly that Gammon wondered whether it had a
personal application.
"It's a theory of mine," pursued the other, his prominent eyes fixed
on some far vision, "that every one of us, however poor, has some
wealthy relative, if he could only be found. I mean a relative
within reasonable limits, not a cousin fifty times removed. That's
one of the charms of London to me. A little old man used to cobble
my boots for me a few years ago in Ball's Pond Road, He had an idea
that one of his brothers, who went out to New Zealand and was no
more heard of, had made a great fortune; said he'd dreamt about it
again and again, and couldn't get rid of the fancy. Well, now, the
house in which he lived took fire, and the poor old chap was burnt
in his bed, and so his name got into the newspapers. A day or two
after I heard that his brother--the one he spoke of--had been living
for some years scarcely a mile away at Stoke Newington--a man
rolling in money, a director of the British and Colonial Bank.
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