ent silence; and then "Get Gregg!"
said he.

The effect of these words was very visible. "He will be gone to his
office," stammered my uncle.

"Get Gregg!" repeated my grandfather.

"I tell you, he will be gone to his office," reiterated Adam.

"And I tell ye, he's takin' his smoke," retorted the old man.

"Very well, then," cried my uncle, getting to his feet with some
alacrity, as upon a sudden change of thought, "I will get him myself."

"Ye will not!" cried my grandfather. "Ye will sit there upon your
hinderland."

"Then how the devil am I to get him?" my uncle broke forth, with not
unnatural petulance.

My grandfather (having no possible answer) grinned at his son with the
malice of a schoolboy; then he rang the bell.

"Take the garden key," said Uncle Adam to the servant; "go over to the
garden, and if Mr. Gregg the lawyer is there (he generally sits under
the red hawthorn), give him old Mr. Loudon's compliments, and will he
step in here for a moment?"

"Mr. Gregg the lawyer!" At once I understood (what had been puzzling me)
the significance of my grandfather and the alarm of my poor uncle: the
stonemason's will, it was supposed, hung trembling in the balance.

"Look here, grandfather," I said, "I didn't want any of this. All
I wanted was a loan of (say) two hundred pounds. I can take care
of myself; I have prospects and opportunities, good friends in the
States----"

The old man waved me down. "It's me that speaks here," he said curtly;
and we waited the coming of the lawyer in a triple silence. He appeared
at last, the maid ushering him in--a spectacled, dry, but not ungenial
looking man.

"Here, Gregg," cried my grandfather. "Just a question: What has Aadam
got to do with my will?"

"I'm afraid I don't quite understand," said the lawyer, staring.

"What has he got to do with it?" repeated the old man, smiting with his
fist upon the arm of his chair. "Is my money mine's, or is it Aadam's?
Can Aadam interfere?"

"O, I see," said Mr. Gregg. "Certainly not. On the marriage of both
of your children a certain sum was paid down and accepted in full of
legitim. You have surely not forgotten the circumstance, Mr. Loudon?"

"So that, if I like," concluded my grandfather, hammering out his
words, "I can leave every doit I die possessed of to the Great
Magunn?"--meaning probably the Great Mogul.

"No doubt of it," replied Gregg, with a shadow of a smile.

"Ye hear that, Aadam?" asked my grandfath