My grandpapa returned to dinner. He wept into his plate all through that meal, and showed me in a thousand ways that his enterprise had produced no good results.
"Speak, my treasure!" I cried at length, unable to bear the suspense; "is it as bad as you thought?"
"A million times worse!"
"Worse! What could be worse, grandpapa?"
"I'll explain. This fool--Nick, I mean--has drawn out the thing single-handed, and defeated his own object, and wrecked me utterly. I saw Mr. Hawker himself. He studied the agreement for an hour, then gave judgment on it. He said, tapping it with his eyeglass, 'Now this document is curious--very much so. The--the person who wrote it appears to have had a certain smattering of law terms, which he sprinkles over his remarks without any legal knowledge, without any familiarity with their forensic significance. The most remarkable thing about this agreement, however, is that by the processes to be applied to Daniel Dolphin, the said gentleman will absolutely cease to exist at the end of the specified time. The deed is amateurish in many respects, but in none more than this. It defeats its own object, for on the completion of the period herein set out, there will be nothing of Mr. Daniel Dolphin left to go anywhere! He said that, and I thanked him and paid six-and-eightpence, and came away, feeling about as cheap as a bad egg."
My grandfather flung himself on a sofa, and cried again.
"Then you can't go to--to--!" I said, with a thrill of exultation.
"I can't go anywhere at all," he moaned; "I go out like gas when it's turned off at the tap. You don't understand--it's terrible, it's unheard of. I'd rather have gone down below than nowhere at all--anybody would. But now--now I shall become as extinct as the dodo. He's spoofed himself, and squelched me. Talk about justice!"
I cannot dwell upon his sufferings. He had always believed firmly in a life beyond the grave. Now it was snatched from him by a juggling, muddle-headed, self-sufficient fiend, who ought never to have been allowed the use of writing materials. The matter was a logical one; the end of the New Scheme simply meant eternal annihilation for my unhappy old grandfather.
CHAPTER XX.