o
do with all his relics and family heirlooms, Frederik? Have you thought
of it? I supposed, of course, you'd keep everything just as he left it.
But from the way you've talked this afternoon, I wonder----"

"Heirlooms? Relics?" queried Frederik, puzzled. "Oh--you mean all this
junk?" with a comprehensive hand wave that included Dutch clock, Dutch
warming pans, Dutch bric-a-brac, and Dutch furniture. "This junk all
over the house? Oh, I'll have it carted to the nearest ash heap. It
isn't worth a red cent of any one's money."

Peter Grimm strode forward, his lips parted in quick protest. But
Colonel Lawton was already answering, with an appraising look about the
room:

"I don't know about that, Frederik. It may not be as worthless as you
seem to think. Better let me send for a dealer to sort it over after
you've gone on your honeymoon. I've heard that some people are fools
enough to pay a lot of good money for this sort of antique trash."

"Not a bad idea," approved Frederik. "See what you can do about it,
won't you? I want it cleared out. And if I can get rid of it and do it
at a profit, too, why, all the better."

"If I could get that old clock," put in Mrs. Batholommey, the light of
the bargain hunt shining in her large face, "I might consent to take it
off your hands. Of course it isn't really worth anything. But----"

"I've an idea," replied Frederik, with charming dearth of civility,
"that it's worth a lot more than you'd pay me for it."

"I hope," she snapped angrily as she glared at Frederik, "that your poor
dear uncle is where he can see his mistake now!"

"I am where I can see several," said the Dead Man to ears that could not
hear.

"Do you know," pursued Mrs. Batholommey, whose depths of professional
sweetness had been turned faintly sub-acid by the events of the day--"do
you know, Frederik, what I would like to say to your uncle if I could
just once stand face to face with him, this very minute?"

"Yes," smiled Peter Grimm sadly, as he looked deep into her eyes, "I
know."

"I should say to him----" began Mrs. Batholommey.

Then she checked herself as at some impulse she herself did not
understand, and finished somewhat lamely:

"No, I wouldn't say it, either. He's dead. And we're told we must speak
no ill of the dead. Though, for my part, I never could see what right we
gain to immunity just by dying. And--oh, by the way, Henry," she broke
off as her husband and the lawyer passed out of the v