m--a decent sort of fellow. A really
nice man. But the affair was no sort of success. I have told you about
it already... .

II

WELL, that about brings me up to the date of my receiving, in Waterbury,
the laconic cable from Edward to the effect that he wanted me to go to
Branshaw and have a chat. I was pretty busy at the time and I was half
minded to send him a reply cable to the effect that I would start in
a fortnight. But I was having a long interview with old Mr Hurlbird's
attorneys and immediately afterwards I had to have a long interview with
the Misses Hurlbird, so I delayed cabling.

I had expected to find the Misses Hurlbird excessively old--in the
nineties or thereabouts. The time had passed so slowly that I had the
impression that it must have been thirty years since I had been in the
United States. It was only twelve years. Actually Miss Hurlbird was just
sixty-one and Miss Florence Hurlbird fifty-nine, and they were both,
mentally and physically, as vigorous as could be desired. They were,
indeed, more vigorous, mentally, than suited my purpose, which was to
get away from the United States as quickly as I could. The Hurlbirds
were an exceedingly united family--exceedingly united except on one set
of points. Each of the three of them had a separate doctor, whom they
trusted implicitly--and each had a separate attorney. And each of them
distrusted the other's doctor and the other's attorney. And, naturally,
the doctors and the attorneys warned one all the time--against each
other. You cannot imagine how complicated it all became for me. Of
course I had an attorney of my own--recommended to me by young Carter,
my Philadelphia nephew.

I do not mean to say that there was any unpleasantness of a grasping
kind. The problem was quite another one--a moral dilemma. You see, old
Mr Hurlbird had left all his property to Florence with the mere request
that she would have erected to him in the city of Waterbury, Ill., a
memorial that should take the form of some sort of institution for the
relief of sufferers from the heart. Florence's money had all come to
me--and with it old Mr Hurlbird's. He had died just five days before
Florence.

Well, I was quite ready to spend a round million dollars on the relief
of sufferers from the heart. The old gentleman had left about a million
and a half; Florence had been worth about eight hundred thousand--and
as I figured it out, I should cut up at about a million myself. Anyho