'He never got on.'
'And the twenty thousand might save their pesky little Mexican souls.'
The child's laughter rippled out across the shocked silence of the elders.
'Maybe Uncle John left them something,' suggested Emily. 'For a man who tried such big things this doesn't seem much money.'
Her brother shook his head.
'"The entire sum of which he stands possessed,"' he read from the lawyer's letter.
'You might make a few inquiries through the post. I rather imagine the Mexican mail service isn't very trustworthy,' suggested Aunt Mary, hopefully.
He looked at her, but in abstracted fashion, as if it were not to Aunt Mary that he was listening.
'I'll write to this Oklahoma lawyer, and then I must go to Mexico.'
'Isn't it a little quixotic?'