He stared up from under his ferocious eyebrow, as the young man entered the study, and took stock of him.
He was used to lawyers. He had had every variety, and had divided them into two distinct classes—they were either rogues or fools. There was no intermediate stage with this old man, and he had no doubt in his mind that Jack Frankfort, a shrewd-looking young man, was to be classed in the former category. He bullied him into a seat.
“I want to see you about my will,” he said. “I have been seriously thinking lately of rearranging the distribution of my property.”
This was his invariable formula. It was intended to convey the impression that he had arrived at this present state of mind after very long and careful consideration, and that the making of wills was a serious and an important business to be undertaken, perhaps, once or twice in a man’s lifetime.
Jack nodded.
“Very good. General,” he said. “Have you a draft?”
“I have no draft,” snapped the other. “I have a will which has already been prepared, and here is a copy.”
He threw it across to his solicitor.
“I do not know whether you have seen this?”
“I think I have one in my bag,” said Jack.
“What the devil do you mean by carrying my will about in your bag?” snarled the other.
“That is the only place I could think of,” said the young man, calmly. “You would not like me to carry it about in my trousers’ pocket, would you?”
The General stared.
“Do not be impertinent, young man,” he said ominously.
It was not a good beginning, but Jack knew that every method had been tried, from the sycophantic to the pompous, but none had succeeded, and the end of all endeavours, so far as the solicitors were concerned, had been the closing of their association with the General’s estate.
He was rather a valuable client if he could only be retained. No human solicitor had discovered a method of retaining him.
“Very well,” said the General at last. “Now please jot down exactly what my wishes are, and have the will drafted accordingly. In the first place, I revoke all former wills.”
Jack, with a sheet of paper and a pencil, nodded and noted the fact.
“In the second place I want you to make absolutely certain that not a penny of my money goes to Dr. Sundle’s Dogs’ Home. The man has been insolent to me, and I hate dogs, anyhow. Not a penny of my money is to go to any hospital or to any charitable institution whatever.”
The old sinner declaimed this with relish.
“I had intended leaving a very large sum of money to a hospital fund,” he explained, “but after the behaviour of this infernal Government—”
Jack might have asked in what way the old man expected to get even with the offending Government by denying support to all institutions designed to help the poor, but wisely kept the question in the background.
“No charitable institution whatever.”
The old man spoke slowly, emphatically, thumping the table with every other word.
“A hundred pounds to the Army Temperance Association, though I think it is a jackass of an institution. A hundred pounds to the Soldiers’ Home at Aldershot, and a thousand pounds if they make it nonsectarian.” He grinned and added: “It will be Church of England to everlasting doomsday, so that money’s safe! And,” he added, “no money to the Cottage Hospital here—do not let that bequest creep in. That stupid maniac of a doctor—I forget his beastly name—led the agitation for opening a right-o’-way across my estate. I will ‘right-o’-way’ him!” he said viciously.
He spent half an hour specifying the people who were not to benefit by his will, and the total amount of his reluctant bequests during that period did not exceed a thousand pounds.
When he had finished he stared hopelessly at the young lawyer, and a momentary glint of humour came in the hard old blue eyes.
“I think we have disposed of everybody,” he said, “without disposing of anything. Do you know my nephew?” he asked suddenly.
“I know a friend of your nephew.”
“Are you related to that grinning idiot Leslie Frankfort?” roared the old man.
“He is my brother,” said the other calmly.
“Humph,” said the General, “I thought I recognised the face. Have you met Gilbert Standerton?” he asked suddenly.
“I have met him once or twice,” said Jack Frankfort carelessly, “as you may have met people, just to say ‘how do you do?’ and that sort of thing.”
“I have never met people to say ‘how do you do?’ and that sort of thing,” protested the old man with a snort. “What sort of fellow do you think he is?” he asked after a pause.
The injunction of Leslie to “say a good word for Gilbert” came to the young man’s mind.
“I think he is a very decent sort of fellow,” he said, “though somewhat reserved and a little standoffish.”
The old man glowered at him.
“My nephew standoffish?” he snapped, “Of course he is standoffish. Do you think a Standerton is everybody’s money? There is nothing Tommyish or Dickish or Harryish about our family, sir. We are all standoffish, thank God! I am the most standoffish man you ever met in your life.”
“That I can well believe,” thought Jack, but did not give utterance to his thought.
Instead he pursued the subject in his own cunning way.
“He is the sort of man,” he said innocently “whom I should think money would be rather wasted on.”
“Why?” asked the General with rising wrath.
Jack shrugged his shoulders.
“Well, he makes no great show, does not attempt to keep any particular place in London Society. In fact, he treats Society as though he were superior to it.”
“And so he is,” growled the General, “we are all superior to Society. Do you think, sir, that I care a damn about any of the people in this county? Do you think I am impressed by my Lord of High Towers and my Lady of the Grange, and the various upstart parvenu aristocrats that swarm over
