“There will be a good many formalities,” he continued. “Tom owned property in several different States. I have brought you the schedule. You can have possession in New York immediately, of course. It will take some little time to manage the rest, proving the will half a dozen times over. If you care to move into the house to-morrow, there is no objection, because there is nobody to object.”
“I have a proposition to make,” said George. “My father is a far better man of business than I. Could you not tell me in round numbers about what I have to expect, and then go over these papers with him?”
“In round numbers,” repeated Trimm thoughtfully. “The fact is, he managed a great deal of his property himself. I suppose I could tell you within a million or two.”
“A million or two!” exclaimed George. Sherry Trimm smiled at the intonation.
“You are an enormously rich man,” he said quietly. “The estate is worth anywhere from twelve to fifteen millions of dollars.”
“All mine?”
“Look at the will. He never spent a third of his income, so far as I could find out.”
George said nothing more, but began to walk up and down the room nervously. He detested everything connected with money, and had only a relative idea of its value, but he was staggered by the magnitude of the fortune thus suddenly thrown into his hands. He understood now the expression he had seen on his father’s face.
“I had no conception of the amount,” he said at last. “I thought it might be a million.”
“A million!” laughed Trimm scornfully. “A man does not live, as he lived, on forty or fifty thousand a year. It needs more than that. A million is nothing nowadays. Every man who wears a good coat has a million. There is not a man living in Fifth Avenue who has less than a million.”