Page 65 - 1917 Hartridge

But legal verbiage is as interesting to the average mind as Homer’s Odys­ sey is to an uneducated chicken. Penrose yawned and dozed through the massive structure called a will. When Smith was silent, he awoke and
felt that he had missed something.
(iWell, what did he say?” he inquired.
“ But I have just read it, my dear sir.”
‘‘But I was unable to understand it, my dear sir,” mocked Penrose.
U
Tsuppose it doesn’t really matter much—just left me all his money and
land if I’d be a good hoy— but, just to be businesslike, tell me the synopsis.” ‘‘Your uncle, realizing your extravagant tendencies, and wishing to he a beneficent factor in your life, although he is no longer here, has made
the following arrangement: you may have as much money as you desire, up to $20,000, for one year, hut—
‘‘The inevitable ‘but/ ” interjected Penrose flippantly.
Lawyer Smith mentally relegated his audience to a place sufficiently removed, but only said, ‘‘But he stipulated that you must earn enough to
be able, at the end of that year, to hand back to me as much as you drew.” Penrose yawned. ‘‘And if I fail to do so?”
‘‘If you fail to do so, your uncle arranged for all his money to go to ‘Long View,’ a home for the mentally unfit.”
‘‘By Jove,” Penrose said, ‘‘the old man must have had a grudge against me.” He rose. ‘‘Now, if you’ve said all you’re going to say—to­ day, that is— Pll be tottering along. Engagements, y’know.”
Smith gathered together his papers and his dignity, and departed. He was already handing over the money to the home for the mentally unfit.
When William returned from his strenuous tennis exercise, Binks
met him at the door, as befitted his station of butler.
‘‘Mr. Smith left a message for you, sir, on the library table
‘‘Smith? Oh, the eye-glass chap? Isn’t he through with me yet?
Well, bring me a whiskey and soda, Binks.” 65
n