DOLLARS FROM NOWHERE

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 20 February 1926, Page 9

DOLLARS FROM NOWHERE

PLEASANT adventure of the kind that usually happens only in fairy tales had befallen Henry Stewart, a British engineer employed at the metallurgical works at Fives, Lille, and living with his family in Lille. Some time ago Mr. Stewart was hurrying home to lunch on his bicycle when a stranger stopped him in the street, and said: “Are you not Mr. Henry Stewart?” “Yes,” said the engineer.

“Then I am looking for you to tell you a piece of very good news,” replied the stranger. “I have come to tell you that Mrs. Jean de Saint-Cyr, who has died in San Francisco, has left you a fortune of forty million dollars.” Mr. Stewart is a hard-headed Scotsman, not easily sw r ept off his feet by the first romantic story that may be told to him.

He told the stranger briefly, but forcibly, that he had never heard anything of the lady mentioned, and further that he did not intend to part with a single penny on the strength of any “rich uncle” stories.

But the stranger was not to be put off. He insisted that he had been searching the Continent for Mr. Stewart, and promptly eased the mind of the new millionaire by assuring him that he did not want a cent by way of expenses or anything else. The enterprising stranger was the representative of a powerful American News Agency, who had been commissioned by his syndicate to find the

SCOTTISH ENGINEER’S GOOD FORTUNE.

missing heir, simply by way of gathering a fine news story. After long searching of genealogical records, he had discovered his man.

The wealthy Mrs. Jean de Saint Cyr was the widow by her first marriage of a man named Stewart, who left a son and a daughter as the direct heirs of all his property after his 'widow’s death. The son died without leaving any direct descendants, so that a collateral branch of his family became beneficiaries. .In this way, it happened that the lucky Air. Henry Stewart had never heard of the people from whom the fortune of forty million dollars was now shot upon him like a bolt from the blue.

The inquisitive reporter, however, appeared to know all about him.' He said: “You were born on August 24 at Nomian, Leith, near Edinburgh, were you not? Your father was named James, a marine engineer, who married Henriette Ziegler, the daughter of a big shipowner of Dunkirk and Saint Male.” The reporter, it appears, had the facts correctly, so that Mr. Stewart, who had been growing impatient at the though of a lunch going cold, began to take more interest in the matter.

At length, however, fie left the bearer of the surprising news and took his lunch without saying ever a word of his sudden ascent to the heights of millionairedom. The fact was that he did not even yet believe in his good fortune. He could not bring himself to realise that forty million dollars had

suddenly been shot into his lap by someone of whose existence he had never even heard. He is now beginning to believe in his good fortune, but it. has taken a good deal longer to convince him than to persuade certain other people that here is an opportunity not to be missed. The mushroom millionaire, who rarely received any letters in the past, lias now a wonderfully heavy mail. Women of all ages and social grades, many of whom even have to ask in their letters whether he is married, offer him consolation, friendship, and other benefits of human relationship. One of his correspondents informs him that she is an Italian countess, aged 34 years, “an independent and pretty woman who is anxious to bring happiness into the life of a worthy mate." She asks if he is married. "If you are not free," the accommodating lady continues, "perhaps you have a son." Money does talk frankly at times. A whole flight of investors has swooped down upon the providential heritage with just as little success as the more romantic class of correspondents. The fact is v that when Mr. Stewart actually lavs hands upon this fortune which he picked up, as it were, on the way to lunch, his first application of it will be to perfect an invention of his own by which men imprisoned in a submarine, or any underwater work, will be able to escape unscathed to the surface.

He has long wanted to get hold of an old submarine or caisson in order to demonstrate the value of his invention. His fortune will enable him to buy one. He has declared that when once he has the submarine at his disposal he will descend in it with his son, wreck it on the sea bed, and arrive with his son on the surface within the space of 15 minutes.