. I don't think, though, that I quite care to tell you."

"Then I'm afraid there'll be some little difficulty about executing your
wishes in the matter."

"How much do wills cost?" she asked irrelevantly.

"It depends on the length."

"How much a yard?"

"We mostly sell them by the folio, not by the yard."

"How many feet are there in a folio?"

"You'll have to ask a law-stationer that."

"How much would a medium-sized will cost? Half-a-crown?"

"More than that," I said.

"Much more?" She turned over some coins in her purse.

"A good deal more."

"But I saw some in a chemist's for ninepence. Perhaps I'd better buy one
of those."

"You might," I said doubtfully.

"You said that as though you didn't think that chemists sell very good
wills."

"There's nothing really the matter with them. They consist of some
printed words and spaces--mostly spaces. If you happen to execute them
the right way the Judge afterwards decides what they mean."

"But how does he know?"

"He doesn't. That's what makes it so interesting. After a number of
barristers have explained what they might mean, the Judge says what they
ought to mean, and they mean that."

"So there would have to be a law-suit?"

"Almost inevitably."

"And you make good wills?"

"My wills are all of the very best quality."

"Then I suppose I must let you make me one. What sort of things do
people leave?"

"All sorts of things. Anything they've got and quite often things they
haven't got."

"Animals? Dogs? Can I will away Bobs, for instance?"

"Yes."

"Can I leave anything to anyone I like?"

"Yes, to anyone you like or don't like." I was thinking of Bobs. He is
not a very amiable dog and no friend of mine.

"I think I'll leave Bobs to you." I had felt it coming.

"But I might die before Bobs. Bobs being a specific legacy would then
lapse and fall into residue," I hurriedly explained.

"That doesn't sound nice."

"It isn't nice. Bobs would never be happy there. You had better leave
him to some one younger."

After we had settled Bobs on a young cousin we got on quite quickly. We
left her old dance programmes and several unimportant things of doubtful
ownership to her greatest rival; her piano (with three notes missing),
on which she had learnt to play as a child, to her Aunt in Australia,
said Aunt to pay carriage and legacy duty; her violin to the people in
the next flat; her French novels to the church library; her golf clubs
and