cent bequests nobody
hereabouts ever heard of before."

"There's a satisfaction in all you say, I confess," observed the
intended donor of all these good gifts; "and who can then say I wasn't
the man to consider the wants of the poor? I always did consider the
poor." So he did, an old scoundrel, and much misery the unhappy
creatures endured in consequence.

"And then," resumed Mr Grapple, "only consider again the tablets in
which all your pious bequests will be stuck up in letters of gold, just
under the church organ, where they will be read and wondered at, not
only by all the townsfolk for hundreds of years to come, but also by all
the strangers that pass through and come to look at the church."

"Very satisfactory that--very!" said the intended testator; "but are you
still sure I can't give my land as well as my money in charities?"

"Only by deed indented, and enrolled within six months after execution,
and to take effect immediately," replied the attorney.

"By which you mean, I suppose, that I must give it out and out, slap
bang all at once, and pass it right away in the same way as if I sold it
outright?"

Lawyer Grapple replied in the affirmative; at which information his
client got very red in the face, and exclaimed, with considerable
warmth--"Before I do that, I'd see all the charities in ----" he didn't
say where; and, checking himself suddenly, continued, in a milder
tone--"That is, I could hardly be expected to make so great a sacrifice
as that in my lifetime; so, as I can't dispose of my lands in the way I
wish, I'll tie 'em up from being made away with as long as I can: for
having neither wife, chick, nor child, nor any one living soul as I care
a single farthing about, it's no pleasure to me to leave it to any body;
but howsomever, as relations is in some shape, as the saying is, after a
manner a part of one's own self, I suppose I'd better leave it to one of
they."

"Your nephew who resides in Mortimer Street, is, I believe, your
heir-at-law?" suggested Mr Grapple.

"He be blowed!" retorted the timber-merchant, petulantly; "he gave me
the cut t'other day in Lunnun streets, for which I cuts he off with a
shilling. Me make he my heir!--see he doubly hanged first, and wouldn't
do it then."

The attorney next mentioned another nephew, who had been a major in the
East India Company's service, and was then resident at Southampton.

"He!" vociferated the uncle, "a proud blockhead; I heerd of his g