ecause it's all she'll have to live
on except what she gets by her own endeavours. This, in case I
suddenly snuff out.

"2d. I want to leave my English riding-crop, spurs, bridle, and
saddle to a Miss Virginia Suydam. Fix it legally.

"3d. Here is a list of eighteen ladies. Each is to have one of my
eighteen Chinese gods.

"4th. To my wife I leave the nineteenth god. Mr. Hamil has it in
his possession. I have no right to dispose of it, but he will
have some day.

"5th. To John Garret Hamil, 3d, I leave my volume of Jean DuMont,
the same being an essay on Friendship.

"6th. To my friend, William Van Bueren Portlaw, I leave my dogs,
rods, and guns with a recommendation that he use them and his
legs.

"7th. To my sister, Lady Tressilvain, I leave my book of comic
Bridge rules, and to her husband a volume of Methodist hymns.

"I'll be in town again, shortly, and expect you to have my will
ready to be signed and witnessed. One ought always to be
prepared, particularly when in excellent health.

"Yours sincerely,
"LOUIS MALCOURT."

"P.S. I enclose a check for the Greenlawn Cemetery people. I wish
you'd see that they keep the hedge properly trimmed around my
father's plot and renew the dead sod where needed. I noticed that
one of the trees was also dead. Have them put in another and keep
the flowers in good shape. I don't want anything dead around that
lot.

"L.M."

When he had sealed and directed his letter he looked around the silent
room. Shiela was sewing by the window. Portlaw, back to the fire, stood
staring out at the rain; Lady Tressilvain, a cigarette between her thin
lips, wandered through the work-shop and loading-room where, from hooks
in the ceiling, a thicket of split-cane rod-joints hung, each suspended
by a single strong thread.

The loading-room was lined with glass-faced cases containing
fowling-pieces, rifles, reels, and the inevitable cutlery and
ironmongery associated with utensils for the murder of wild creatures.
Tressilvain sat at the loading-table to which he was screwing a delicate
vise to hold hooks; for Malcourt had given him a lesson in fly-tying,
and he meant to dress a dozen to try on Painted Creek.

So he sorted snell and hook and explored the tin trunk for hackles,
silks, and feathers, up t