e legacy!"

Helmsley smiled--he very nearly laughed. But he carefully guarded his
equanimity.

"Thank you for the hint, sir! I'll try and see him some day!"

"I hear he's dead," said Prindle, finishing the signing of his name and
laying down his pen. "It was in the papers some time back."

"But it was contradicted," said Owlett quickly.

"Ah, but I think it was true all the same," and Prindle shook his head
obstinately. "The papers ought to know."

"Oh yes, they ought to know, but in nine cases out of ten they _don't_
know," declared Owlett. "And if you contradict their lies, they're so
savage at being put in the wrong that they'll blazon the lies all the
more rather than confess them. That will do, Prindle! You can go."

Prindle, aware that his employer was not a man to be argued with, at
once retired, and Owlett, folding up the Will, handed it to Helmsley.

"That's all right," he said, "I suppose you want to take it with you?
You can leave it with us if you like."

"Thank you, but I'd rather have it about me," Helmsley answered. "You
see I'm old and not very strong, and I might die at any time. I'd like
to keep my Will on my own person."

"Well, take care of it, that's all," said the solicitor, smiling at what
he thought his client's rustic _naivete_. "No matter how little you've
got to leave, it's just as well it should go where you want it to go
without trouble or difficulty. And there's generally a quarrel over
every Will."

"I hope there's no chance of any quarrel over mine," said Helmsley, with
a touch of anxiety.

"Oh no! Not the least in the world! Even if you were as great a
millionaire as the man who happens to bear the same name as yourself,
the Will would hold good."

"Thank you!" And Helmsley placed on the lawyer's desk more than his
rightful fee, which that respectable personage accepted without any
hesitation. "I'm very much obliged to you. Good afternoon!"

"Good afternoon!" And Mr. Owlett leaned back in his chair, blandly
surveying his visitor. "I suppose you quite understand that, having made
your legatee, Mary Deane, your sole executrix likewise, you give her
absolute control?"

"Oh yes, I quite understand that!" answered Helmsley. "That is what I
wish her to have--the free and absolute control of all I die possessed
of."

"Then you may be quite easy in your mind," said the lawyer. "You have
made that perfectly clear."

Whereat Helmsley again said "Good afternoon," and again Mr.