You
really mean he hasn't written?
'Why, dash it,' said the young man, as one to whom all is
revealed, 'then you can't have understood a word of what I've been
saying!'
For the first time Elizabeth found herself capable of smiling. She
liked this incoherent young man.
'I haven't,' she said.
'You don't know about the will?'
'Only what you told me in your letter.'
'Well, I'm hanged! Tell me--I hadn't the honour of knowing him
personally--was the late Mr Nutcombe's whole life as eccentric as
his will-making? It seems to me--'
Nutty spoke.
'Uncle Ira's middle name,' he said, 'was Bloomingdale. That,' he
proceeded, bitterly, 'is the frightful injustice of it all. I had
to suffer from it right along, and all I get, when it comes to a
finish, is a miserable hundred dollars. Uncle Ira insisted on
father and mother calling me Nutcombe; and whenever he got a new
craze I was always the one he worked it off on. You remember the
time he became a vegetarian, Elizabeth? Gosh!' Nutty brooded
coldly on the past. 'You remember the time he had it all worked
out that the end of the world was to come at five in the morning
one February? Made me stop up all night with him, reading Marcus
Aurelius! And the steam-heat turned off at twelve-thirty! I could
tell you a dozen things just as bad as that.
Pages:
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276