On examining my father's private papers, my uncle was not a little chagrined to find that Mr. Banker was to be appointed my guardian, there being a will to that effect, a will that Mr. Mason and I afterwards found among Mr. Stillwell's papers.
Mr. Banker was not on good terms with my uncle, so the latter knew that if the former became my guardian the loan that my father had consented to make would most likely never be carried out. In this predicament my uncle had taken his first wrong step. He had hidden my father's will and brought forth an old one in which he himself was named as guardian.
This wrong step accomplished, the rest was easy enough. But my uncle's original intention had been to treat me fairly, just as if Mr. Banker had been my guardian.
Yet in the end the temptation to use the money for his own benefit was too strong for him, and he had ended by losing something like ten thousand dollars out of an estate worth fifty.
It was then that he had met Captain Hannock, who was an old school chum, and been persuaded to go into the scheme that had ended so disastrously. The remainder the reader already knows.
By a paper drawn up by Mr. Mason, Uncle Felix placed the charge of his affairs entirely in the lawyer's hands. Mr. Mason was to settle his estate, pay all that was due to me over to Mr. Banker, my new guardian, and then settle the remainder upon Gus and Lillian, taking out, of course, my aunt's share as his widow.
Although my uncle did not say so, I am pretty well satisfied that much of his wrongdoing was attributable to his wife, who was a very proud and extravagant woman. This, I think, is why he left her no more than he did.
The day before my uncle's funeral Mr. Banker came down to the city. He shook me warmly by the hand and slyly asked me if I had enough of the sea.
"Yes, indeed," I replied. "Life on shipboard is well enough to read about, but the city is good enough for me."
"And what do you propose to do now?" he asked.