ite undistinguished in appearance. The lead pencils had the most
untemperamental looking points.

Cleggett himself, as he filled and lighted the pipe, did it in the most
matter-of-fact sort of way. Then he remarked to the head of the copy
desk, in an average kind of voice:

"H'lo, Jim."

"H'lo, Clegg," said Jim, without looking up. "Might as well begin on
this bunch of early copy, I guess."

For more than ten years Cleggett had done the same thing at the same
time in the same manner, six nights of the week.

What he did on the seventh night no one ever thought to inquire. If any
member of the Enterprise staff had speculated about it at all he would
have assumed that Cleggett spent that seventh evening in some way
essentially commonplace, sober, unemotional, quiet, colorless, dull and
Brooklynitish.

Cleggett lived in Brooklyn. The superficial observer might have said
that Cleggett and Brooklyn were made for each other.

The superficial observer! How many there are of him! And how much he
misses! He misses, in fact, everything.

At two o'clock in the morning a telegraph operator approached the copy
desk and handed Cleggett a sheet of yellow paper, with the remark:

"Cleggett--personal wire."

It was a night letter, and glancing at the signature Cleggett saw that
it was from his brother who lived in Boston. It ran:

Uncle Tom died yesterday. Don't faint now. He splits bulk fortune
between you and me. Lawyers figure nearly $500,000 each. Mostly easily
negotiable securities. New will made month ago while sore at president
temperance outfit. Blood thicker than Apollinaris after all. Poor
Uncle Tom.

Edward.

Despite Edward's thoughtful warning, Cleggett did nearly faint. Nothing
could have been less expected. Uncle Tom was an irascible
prohibitionist, and one of the most deliberately disobliging men on
earth. Cleggett and his brother had long ceased to expect anything
from him. For twenty years it had been thoroughly understood that
Uncle Tom would leave his entire estate to a temperance society.
Cleggett had ceased to think of Uncle Tom as a possible factor in his
life. He did not doubt that Uncle Tom had changed the will to gain
some point with the officials of the temperance society, intending to
change it once again after he had been deferred to, cajoled, and
flattered enough to placate his vanity. But death had stepped in just
in time to disinherit the enemies of the Demon Rum.

Cl