say is that at
some time or other it may have been his wish."

"I see!" agreed Payson. "Well, what other points are there?"

"Secondly," continued Tutt, "it must be presumed that if your father
took the trouble to retain a lawyer to have his will properly drawn and
executed he must have known first, that it was necessary to do so in
order to have his wishes carried out, and second, that no wish not
properly incorporated in the will itself could have any legal effect. In
other words, inferentially, he knew that this paper had no force and
therefore it must be assumed that if he made it that way he intended
that it should have no legal effect and did not intend that it should be
carried out. Get me?"

"Why, yes, I think I do. Your point is that if a man knows the law and
does a thing so it has no legal effect he should be assumed to intend
that it have no legal effect."

"Exactly," Tutt nodded with satisfaction. "The law is wise, based on
generations of experience. It realizes the uncertainties, vagaries, and
vacillations of the human mind--and the opportunities afforded to
designing people to take advantage of the momentary weaknesses of
others--and hence to prevent fraud and insure that only the actual final
wishes of a man shall be carried out it requires that those wishes shall
be expressed in a particular, definite and formal way--in writing,
signed and published before witnesses."

"You certainly make it very clear!" assented Payson. "What do executors
usually do under such circumstances?"

"If they have sense they leave matters alone and let the law take its
course," answered Tutt with conviction. "I've known of more trouble--!
Several instances right here in this office. A widow found a paper with
her husband's will expressing a wish that a certain amount of money
should be given to a married woman living out in Duluth. There was
nothing to indicate when the paper was written, although the will was
executed only a month before he died. Apparently the deceased hadn't
seen the lady in question for years. I told her to forget it, but
nothing would suit her but that she should send the woman a money order
for the full amount--ten thousand dollars. She kept it, all right! Well,
the widow found out afterwards that her husband had written that paper
thirty years before at a time when he was engaged to be married to that
woman, that they had changed their minds and each had married happily
and that the paper with