First I took refuge in my room, my idea being to put away that pile of letters.

In so doing I observed that there was one still unopened.

Half mechanically I took it from the envelope and glanced at its contents.

They were word for word identical with those of that addressed to "Mr.Hans, Hottentot," only my name was at the bottom of it instead of that of Hans and the cheque was for L1,500, the amount I had paid for the shares I held in the venture.
Feeling as though my brain were in a melting-pot, I departed from the house into a patch of native bush that in those days still grew upon the slope of the hill behind.

Here I sat myself down, as I had often done before when there was a knotty point to be considered, aimlessly watching a lovely emerald cuckoo flashing, a jewel of light, from tree to tree, while I turned all this fairy-godmother business over in my mind.
Of course it soon became clear to me.