A lawyer made his way to the edge of the excavation where a gang was working, and called the name of Timothy O'Toole.
"Who's wantin' me?" inquired a heavy voice.
"Mr. O'Toole," the lawyer asked, "did you come from Castlebar, County Mayo?"
"I did that."
"And your mother was named Bridget and your father Michael?"
"They was."
"It is my duty, then," said the lawyer, "to inform you, Mr. O'Toole, that your Aunt Mary has died in Iowa, leaving you an estate of sixty thousand dollars."
There was a short silence below, and then a lively commotion.
"Are you coming, Mr. O'Toole?" the lawyer called down.
"In wan minute," was bellowed in answer. "I've just stopped to lick the foreman."
It required just six months of extremely riotous living for O'Toole to expend all of the sixty thousand dollars. His chief endeavor was to satisfy a huge inherited thirst.
Then he went back to his job. And there, presently, the lawyer sought him out again.
"It's your Uncle Patrick, this time, Mr. O'Toole," the lawyer explained. "He has died in Texas, and left you forty thousand dollars."
O'Toole leaned heavily on his pick, and shook his head in great weariness.
"I don't think I can take it," he declared. "I'm not as strong as I wance was, and I misdoubt me that I could go through all that money and live."
