The million pound banknote

I wasn't much worried about the bet. I had always been lucky. I estimated that I would get a salary of six hundred to a thousand pounds a year. Let us say that I might earn six hundred for the first year, this would go up year by year, until I showed that I was worth a thousand a year. At present I was only in debt for my first year's salary. Everybody had been trying to lend me money. I had fought off most of them on one pretext or another. I only actually owed £300. The other £300 was money which I had spent on my keep and my purchases.

I believed my second year's salary would carry me through the rest of the month if I went on being cautious and economical, and I intended to look sharply out for that. When the month was over my employer would be back from his journey. Then I would be all right once more. I would immediately divide the two years' salary between my creditors, and get right down to my work.

It was a lovely dinner-party of fourteen. These were the Duke and Duchess of Shoreditch, and their daughter the Lady Anne-Grace-Eleanor-Celeste-and-so-forth-de-Bohun, the Earl and Countess of Newgate, Viscount Cheapside, Lord and Lady Blatherskite, There were also some untitled people of both sexes and the ambassador and his wife and daughter. The daughter had a friend who was visiting her, an English girl who was twenty-two years old. Her name was Portia Langham and I fell in love with her in two minutes. And she fell in love with me - I could see it without glasses.

Vocabulary:

Fought off: Kept back with an effort
Pretext: Excuse
Keep: How much money one needs to live
Look sharply out: Be very careful
Creditors: People who are owed money
Untitled: Not members of the aristocracy
Of both sexes: Men and women

: