Kipps, page 99 by H.G. Wells
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cts they had correct. Kipps had gone upstairs. Kipps was packing his box. He said he wouldn't stop another day in the old Emporium not for a thousand pounds! It was said that he was singing ribaldry about old Shalford. He had come down! He was in the counting-house. There was a general movement thither. (Poor old Buggins had a customer, and couldn't make out what the deuce it was all about! Completely out of it, was Buggins.)
There was a sound of running to and fro, and voices saying this, that, and the other thing about Kipps. Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger went the dinner-bell, all unheeded. The whole of the Emporium was suddenly bright-eyed, excited, hungry to tell somebody, to find at any cost somebody who didn't know, and be first to tell them, 'Kipps has been left thirty--forty--fifty thousand pounds!'
'What!' cried the senior porter. 'Him!' and ran up to the counting-house as eagerly as though Kipps had broken his neck.
'One of our chaps just been left sixty thousand pounds,' said the first apprentice, returning after a great absence to his customer.
'Unexpectedly?' said the customer. 'Quite,' said the first apprentice...
'I'm sure if Any One deserves it, it's Mr. Kipps,' said Miss Mergle; and her train rustled as she hurried to the counting-house.
There stood Kipps amidst a pelting shower of congratulations. His face was flushed, and his hair disordered. He still clutched his hat and best umbrella in his left hand. His right hand was any one's to shake rather than his own. (Ring-a-dinger, ring-a-dinger, ding, ding, ding, dang you! went the neglected dinner-bell.)
'Good old Kipps!' said Pearce, shaking. 'Good old Kipps!' Booch rubbed one anaemic hand upon the other. 'You're sure it's all right, Mr. Kipps?' he said in the background. 'I'm sure we all congratulate him,' said Miss Mergle. 'Great Scott!' said the new young lady in the glove department. 'Twelve hundred a year! Great Scott! You aren't thinking of marrying any one, are you, Mr. Kipps?'
'Three