Squire Napper by Arthur Morrison

Bill Napper went home in a hansom, ordering a barrel of beer on the way. One of the chief comforts of affluence is that you may have beer in by the barrel; for then Sundays and closing times vex not, and you have but to reach the length of your arm for another pot whenever moved thereunto. Nobody in Canning Town had beer by the barrel except the tradesmen, and for that Bill had long envied the man who kept shop. And now, at his first opportunity, he bought a barrel of thirty-six gallons.

Once home with the news, and Canning Town was ablaze. Bill Napper had come in for three thousand, thirty thousand, three hundred thousand -- any number of thousands that were within the compass of the gossip's command of enumeration. Bill Napper was called "W. Napper, Esq." -- he was to be knighted -- he was a long-lost baronet -- anything. Bill Napper came home in a hansom -- a brougham -- a state coach.