"No. It'll take a bit longer than that. Besides the pergola will be the first to go; she isn't sure of it even now, with Turkish lamps of colored glass and Japanese wind-bells. In about three years she'll make him sell it."
"I'll keep an eye on it. It's rather far, but it would make a glorious convalescent home, if we could get it for nothing."
"No doubt you could."
They laughed in understanding.
"Exit Amos. What did you do to Fenninger?"
"It worked like a charm. We didn't tell mummy a thing except that a friend of Mary's was in town for a few days, and she wanted him to have one really good home dinner. Mummy rose to the bait and begged for more. As a relative I can't brag about that dinner but, by the time we got to a frozen dream of mummy's invention, he believed that the whole idea had originated with himself. And by the time the percolator got to bubbling he gave me a check for three thousand as if he were hiring me to attend to a few minor details he had no time for."
"Poor devil! And his part's only just begun. Does he know he's going to operate on people for the remainder?"
"He's not. He just advises the operations; Mary and I do the surgery."
"Who is it?" Gregory was grinning, his small-boy grin.
"It's not a 'who.' It's an it. Fenninger's pet case is a millionaire, cirrhosis of the liver, with two pieces of property on the East River, one in the upper fifties and one in the nineties. He thinks we can get either on a small lease; it can't be deeded over altogether because of some legal tangle, but it's perfectly safe. Mary and I are going to make our choice this Sunday."