George opened his mouth, but the lawyer raised his left hand, palm out, toward George.

"He seemed to own nothing but his clothes. The house was rented, and its contents. His funeral expenses were prepaid. No outstanding debts. Everything paid in full up to date."

"Then why did you need my birth certificate and the other documents?"

"Because of his will."

"But if there's nothing–"

"I didn't say that. There is something. A box." The lawyer opened a side drawer in the desk, reached in, and produced a box: a cube of black ebony about five inches each side. "He left instructions with us to be opened on his death. They told us where to find the box and named you as his heir."

"What is it?" George said.

"We don't know. I was rather hoping you might tell me. There doesn't seem any way to open it."

George picked up the box and examined it. On close inspection, he saw a fine inlay of a slightly lighter wood ran, like the string on a parcel, a short way in from the edge. He shook it, but heard nothing.

"So that's it?" George placed the box back on the desk.

"We were hoping you might be able to open it. Obviously the box itself is of little intrinsic value, but the contents ...?"

They both stared at it.

"I wonder," George said, and lifted the box again.

It called up a memory of one Christmas when he was eight or maybe nine. A similar box had arrived addressed to him. No card. Absolutely nothing to show who it was from. His three cousins had received similar boxes, but George was the only one to manage to open his box. In it was a card. Uncle Edward.

His dad had laughed. "Uncle Edward! No one's heard of him for years."

As instructed, George wrote a polite thank-you letter to the address on the card, and later, in response to a written request, sent a photocopy of his birth certificate. After that ten years of silence passed before he heard from this lawyer.

"I think I know how to open it. One side should slide back a bit and that allows a second side to slide out all the way."

George pushed at each side in turn without any luck. By the third circuit, the lawyer was tapping his fingers on the desk and looking pointedly at his watch.

A faint click, felt, through George's fingers, rather than heard, suggested success. One side slid back past the inlay and the adjacent side could be slid clear.

George grinned at the lawyer and reached his hand in.

Perhaps the lawyer would want a percentage of whatever was in the box, George thought, and with his hand still in the box said, "What do I owe you?"

Taking his eyes off the box in George's hands the lawyer glanced in a folder on his desk and said, "I have your bill right here. It was a simple matter. The details are here -- £150."

There was something in the box. Stiff paper, but not much of it. George pulled out his hand and laughed. Three £50 notes.

"Nice joke," he said and the lawyer flushed.

"I assure you I had no idea what was in the box. We do not play tricks on clients."

The temperature in the room had dropped several degrees, George felt, and quickly signed a receipt for the box.

"Is the apartment --" George started.

But the lawyer interrupted, "The lease on the apartment and the furnishings expired two days after his death and all his clothing has gone to the Salvation Army -- his instructions. What you have there is all there is."

The lawyer stood and George, dismissed, shook the proffered hand that felt like a dead cod-fish.

Just in time for lunch with Ellen, George thought in the outer foyer of the office block. I hope she hasn't started and we can go somewhere cheaper.

But at the restaurant, George sighed. His girl friend grinned.

"I hope you don't mind I ordered already. How did it go? Are we rich?"

George placed the box on the table.

"There's my legacy."

"Was your uncle nuts? Or a practical joker?"

Ellen looked the box over before she held it up to her ear and shook it.

"It can't be solid. It's too light. Can you open it?"

The waiter placed their meals on the table.

"Let's enjoy the meal first. It's back to McDonald's after this–if we can afford to eat out at all."

Later, George glanced at the check and winced.

"Some celebration." Ellen said. "We may as well finish the coffee in the pot. It's paid for. What was the tab?"

"Forty-five pounds. Fifty with a tip." George picked up the box and demonstrated how it opened. As before he thrust his hand in, intending to show Ellen it was empty, but again he felt crisp paper.

"That's a neat trick," Ellen said, and took the two twenties and the ten from George's hand and placed them in the small tray with the check. "We're supposed to be saving for a house, you know."

"You ordered."

"I thought from your big talk we'd have some money to burn. Not just a crummy box."

Later, alone in his small bachelor pad, George opened the box and examined it thoroughly. Empty as Mother Hubbard's cupboard, and it stayed that way through several openings and closings.

Next morning, George slipped the box into his gym bag and took it with him to the office

"Let's eat at the pub, Mike," George said to his friend in the office at lunch.

"No, I'm flat broke till pay day."

"Come on. I've something to show you. I'll pay."

Mike checked the box out thoroughly before he set it down on the table. "OK, I give up, let's see you do it."

It was difficult to open the box with a flourish, but George did his best and handed Mike the open box.

Mike peered in. "So, a kid's trick box. Very well made, I grant you, but it won't fetch much. Is that all your uncle left you?"

George took back the box and closed it. "What's the tab? I said I'd pay."

"You'd better. I'm not washing dishes. Nine and change. Ten should cover it."

Again, George slid the box open, reached in and plucked out a crisp £10 note.

"That was very slick. I didn't know you did conjuring tricks." Mike laughed. "Don't give up your day job, though."

Over the next few weeks, George experimented with the box and discovered it wasn't necessary to close the box each time. He could simply reach in when he had a bill to pay. For convenience he bought an attaché case big enough to close over the box when he didn't have it in his gym bag.

Time for something big, George thought. Enough of this penny ante stuff. A surprise for Ellen that's the ticket.

The jeweller looked George up and down before he placed a tray of rings on the counter.

"These aren't very big stones, are they?" George said. "Don't you have anything better?"

"Bigger and more expensive." The jeweller's eyebrows twitched. "What price range had you in mind?"

"If you have to ask the price you can't afford it, I always say."

The assistant's eyebrows went up another notch, but he placed a new tray on the counter.

"These are top of the line. What ring size?"

"Oh, I'm not sure. Can Ellen, my girlfriend, come in and have the size adjusted?"

"Certainly. We'd be delighted."

George studied the rings.

"This one, I think."

"An excellent choice. £2,500 including VAT."

George smiled and the assistant smiled back.

"How would you like pay, sir?"

"Cash," George said nonchalantly. No one had called him, sir, before. He opened his case and reached into the box.

Nothing? Nothing! George's fingers explored every corner of the box.

Blood rushed to his face, his ears burned. George blurted out, "I seem to have left my wallet at the office."

"We could accept a cheque for a deposit or a credit card and hold the ring for you, sir."

"No, no, I've nothing with me. Everything's at the office."

George backed away and the jeweller quickly scanned the tray. He looked up as George reached the door.

"Do come back, ...sir. It's been a pleasure to serve you."

As he fled, George could feel the eyes of the other customers drill into his back.

Was the box trying to tell him something about him and Ellen?

For a day or two, George was afraid to risk the box for anything, but the temptation was too much. Some things the box paid for, some things it didn't.

After puzzling over the question for some time, George realised the items the box wouldn't pay for were long lasting, even in some way permanent. It wouldn't even come up with a down payment on a car or a house, and George flushed all over at the memory of those failures.

Uncle Edward wasn't very smart, George thought. He should have bought all his daily needs with the box and banked a monthly pay cheque. He'd soon have saved enough to buy a car or even a house with money to spare.

George congratulated himself on his insight, and felt good for a few days till his bank statement arrived.

Ellen would kill him. They were supposed to be saving to get married. Where had his small balance gone? He had paid his monthly cheque in, in full. What had happened?

On close examination it was obvious. He hadn't made any cash withdrawals, but there they were. Each one for the amount the box had given him.

With no money in the account would the box stop paying? But that couldn't be how the box worked. Uncle Edward had no bank account and no apparent source of income, yet his apartment had been in an expensive area of town.

A trial seemed in order. He needed a new computer program that cost about £60 and there was only £10 left in his bank account. The transaction went without a hitch, and when George checked his bank account it was empty.

Fine. There's more than one way to skin a cat. He'd cash his monthly pay cheque and save it under the mattress. No interest, of course, but bank interest wasn't all that hot anyway. The box would provide for his daily needs and some extravagances. Even without interest his savings would add up more quickly than with him living on his salary and saving what, if anything, was left over at the end of the month.

Satisfied he had the box tamed now, George indulged himself in some new clothes, and bought some presents for Ellen. Each purchase he carefully checked for permanence with the box before closing the deal.

"Where's this money coming from?" Ellen said. "Remember, we're supposed to be saving–both of us."

"Don't worry. It turned out that Uncle Edward did leave me something after all." George crossed his fingers behind his back.

"Then we should save it, not squander it."

At the apartment block that night, an attempted burglary of an apartment on the floor below George, created a stir and alarmed George. He pulled out the envelope from below the mattress. It was much thinner than when he'd put in his month's pay. Only one £50 note remained. He checked his diary notes on what he'd paid for out of the box. It came to considerably more that his month's pay.

Back to the drawing board. After some more experimentation George concluded that the box wouldn't allow him more than a £50 cash float. Any more than that under the mattress or in his pocket and the box reimbursed itself for payoffs.

Great! No bank account, no cash reserve, no car, no house. No Ellen?

Perhaps Uncle Edward hadn't been so stupid after all. Hadn't he simply leased any possibly permanent possessions?

"How can we afford a car?" Ellen frowned at George's beautiful, shiny, new sports car.

"Don't you like it?"

"Is this more of your Uncle Edward's money?"

"Sort of. I haven't bought it you know. It's leased."

"Leased to own?"

"No...just leased."

"Money down the drain. At least buying would give us some property."

George sighed. Would Ellen understand if he explained? Worse, if she did understand, would she approve? She was very much a no-nonsense type.

Oh, well, here goes.

He took a deep breath and told Ellen of his experiences with the box so far. She listened without interrupting him once and George wasn't sure if that was a good sign or not. It had never happened before.

His explanation tailed off into silence.

"You mean you can buy anything you like and the box pays?"

"Not quite."

George recounted his adventure with the jeweller and his attempts to buy a car and put a down payment on a house.

Ellen laughed. "We could have a great time. I've always wanted to go on a cruise: the Caribbean or maybe to Alaska, or even a world cruise. We could get married and rent an apartment. A real swish apartment."

She stopped for breath.

"So you're OK about the car?"

"Yes, silly. The box changes everything. Makes everything possible."

Ellen's words rang in George's ears next morning and he dropped in to see the travel agent in the office block he worked in.

"Caribbean Cruise? Sure. Two cabins? Adjoining, of course!"

George felt himself blush and awareness of it made him blush even more.

"Can do. First available dates? Six weeks from now, OK? How do you want to pay?"

"Cash. How much?" Darn it, George thought, he's got me talking like a Gatling gun.

"£1,000 apiece."

George opened his case and looked in the box. There was only £1,000 there. George felt as if he was in an elevator that had just dropped several floors unexpectedly.

"I'll get back to you," he said.

Uncle Edward had been single. He had lived and travelled alone for all of the time George had been able to trace.

"A solitary man," George's dad had said.

Exactly how did he tell Ellen.

"When do we go?" Ellen said at lunch. "I'd like to give at least a couple of weeks notice."

George cleared his throat, but his voice still came out as a bare croak.

"There's a problem, Ellen." He stopped.

"Spit it out."

"It looks as if the box will only pay for my direct expenses and not anybody else's–"

"What? I'm not just anybody! Anyway it paid for dinner before didn't it?"

"Yes, but that was my direct expense, my entertainment–"

"I am not your entertainment."

"Please, I didn't mean it like that–"

"When you've decided what you do mean and what's important to you, call me. There's an answering machine."

With that Ellen pushed back her chair and strode out of the restaurant.

What now? The idea of unlimited funds and no job was attractive, but alone? No companionship except for temporary, short-lived acquaintances that he paid for? No. George didn't want to live like that. He wanted to be with Ellen.

On the way home, George stopped on the bridge and looked down at the flowing water. The box was wood. It would float and someone, somewhere, sometime would find it and be trapped as George was. With a sigh he moved on.

Back in his apartment George sat with the box on his lap and stared at it, then something the caretaker had said the day before sprung to his mind.

"Won't be long before they won't let me use the incinerator no more."

In the boiler room, he took one last, long look at the box before he opened the incinerator door and thrust the box into the flames.

George couldn't wait for the elevator. He ran up the stairs and along the corridor, jumping up to touch the ceiling as he ran.

In the precise centre of the coffee table beside his one easy chair sat the box.

All night George tossed and turned. He couldn't throw the box away or destroy it. Even if it would let him give it away, how could he saddle someone else with his dilemma–life in luxurious isolation or not use the box at all with the constant temptation of its presence?

Just before dawn a possible solution came to him. He'd need some days off work.

Just after eight he phoned Ellen and as he expected got her answering machine.

"I think I can get us back the way we were before Uncle Edward's albatross landed," he said. "But it's tricky."

He started to tell the machine about trying to destroy the box, but his time ran out and the machine hung up on him.

Four days later he spoke to Ellen's answering machine again.

"I'm broke—we're broke—again, Ellen. We're free of Uncle Edward's box. Meet me for coffee at our usual place after work today. Please."

Ellen wasn't at the cafe when George walked in. He picked a table near the door and sat facing it. When Ellen did walk in, he leaped to his feet sending his cup flying and coffee splattering in all directions.

"You and Ellen had a tiff, did you George?" the waitress said. "Never mind. Take another table. I'll mop up. You'll only make it worse."

"How did you do it?" Ellen said. "I gathered from your garbled message you couldn't destroy the box."

"I gave to a relative of my mother's, in Ireland."

"What had he done to you to deserve that?"

"Nothing. He's a priest in an order that takes a vow of perpetual poverty."

"But, George, you said it would only pay for your personal expenses, your entertainment, your pleasures..."

"Right. Cousin Harold's pleasure in life is helping people, feeding the poor. What can possibly give him more pleasure than having money to buy food, or to give away? Anyway, the box hasn't come back to me, so it must be happy. Cousin Harold sure is. He's got a bottomless poor box."