Bertha Cool started reading the will:
“Know all men by these presents that I, Harlow Milbers, of the age of sixty-eight years, being of sound and disposing mind and memory, and being utterly weary, not of life (for I like that) but of the people who insist on living it at the same time I do, make this my last will and testament, in words and figures as follows: “I have only one living relative, Christopher Milbers, a cousin, a damned hair-splitting hypocrite. I have nothing in particular against Christopher Milbers except that I don’t like him, that his personality irritates me, that he says too much about too little too often, and suppresses his own opinion upon controversial subjects because he hopes thereby to receive a measure of my bounty when I am dead. “Much of the distaste with which I regard a final dissolution is due to a contemplation of the ghoulish glee with which my polysyllabic relative will prate about the sanctity of family, the true bond of relationship, and the inscrutable ways of Providence, all the while gleefully contemplating the material advantages which will ensue to him with the probating of my will. “Taking all of these things into consideration and realizing the necessity of making some provision for my beloved cousin, in order to conform to the conventions and not to disappoint said beloved cousin too greatly, because, after all, he has taken time to write me long, uninteresting letters, I therefore give, devise, and bequeath to my said cousin, Christopher Milbers, the sum of ten thousand dollars ($ 10,000.00).”
Bertha turned the page. Before starting to read the second page, she surveyed the startled faces of the people about her.
“You asked for this,” she said to Christopher Milbers.
Milbers, white-lipped with indignation, said, “It is an outage — the last word of a man who has placed himself beyond each of a reply. It was unkind. It was cowardly, but, of course—”
Bertha Cool finished his sentence for him as he became thoughtfully silent. “But of course, ten thousand bucks is ten thousand bucks,” she said.
Christopher Milbers flushed. “A mere bagatelle for a man of his means,” he said. “It is definitely insulting.”
Bertha Cool started reading once more from the will.
“To my secretary, Josephine Dell, ten thousand dollars ($10,000.00). “To Nettie Cranning, my housekeeper, Eva Hanberry, her daughter, Paul Hanberry, her son-in-law, all the rest of everything I own. “I don’t want Christopher Milbers to have anything to do with the business in court. Nettie Cranning is to be executor of my whole estate. “In witness whereof, and in a slightly whimsical mood, as though this preparation for the post-mortem distribution of my property had already freed me somewhat from the burden of earthly hypocrisies, I have hereunto set my hand and seal this twenty-fifth day of January, nineteen hundred and forty-two, subscribing the document in the presence of two persons whom I have called in to witness my signature and make it legal, declaring to them that it is my will, yet making certain they are unfamiliar with the contents thereof. (signed) Harlow Milbers.
“And,” Bertha Cool went on, “there’s an attestation clause for the witness following just below. I guess I may as well read it.