But what is imagination without matter or money to work upon? Like a spark without tinder on a wet day in the woods. At all events, I could scarcely overlook the fact that, whereas I had made a fortune by my real estate speculation, you were unable to make so much as a bare living by your real estate denunciation.
Have patience a little longer with the garrulity of a dying man. A few weeks ago, I was taken ill with a fatal dilatation of the aorta, and the end may come in a day, a month, a year. What to do with my investments became an immediately pressing problem. The charities I had named in my last will were administered, as I well knew, by a host of charity-mongers even more distasteful to me than kith and kin.
In this painful dilemma I read your letter again, thinking that my reaction to it, a year ago, had been hasty or unfair. Perhaps the wish was father to the thought; perhaps my infirmity has softened my brain. Whatever the cause, one passage in your letter struck me. My eyes were opened and I saw, or believed I saw, that you were a chosen vessel to bear my name and fortune before the American people. Accordingly I revoked all charitable bequests and appointed you as my principal heir and assign.
The passage that took my fancy was the one in which you declared that it is nobler to spend a fortune than to make one. Unhappily, I have never been able to practice this sentiment in full. Not that I have failed to try. I have spent millions in my time. Indeed I feel justified in saying that I have been a constant and deliberate spendthrift in the most literal sense of the word. But, like you, I have an imagination (although, unlike you, I have always prudently given my imagination the wherewithal to work upon). Thus, in the teeth of a free and incessant expenditure, my mind has always produced far more than my body could possibly consume or my hands give away. And so I come at last to the most tragic moment in a rich man's life: that in which he arranges for others to spend what he himself has earned.
But spent it must be. And when I consider your Lloyd heredity, your childlike ignorance of the ease with which money is made, and your crushing innocence of the difficulty with which it is spent, I feel I can hardly put my future in better hands than yours. God bless you, my dear nephew, and may your efforts at noble disbursement be attended by success.
Your affectionate uncle,
Allan D. Lloyd.
Robert's feelings beggared expression.
Half dazed, he took out the second enclosure, a brief communication from Messrs. Simons and Hunt, his uncle's attorneys. This notified him of Mr. Lloyd's death, and confirmed the fact of his designation as the residuary legatee. After putting an estimate of two million dollars on the minimum value of the estate, Messrs. Simons and Hunt placed their services at the disposal of the heir and announced their readiness to receive his instructions.
Followed a blank in Robert's consciousness. Slowly, very slowly, this was replaced by the sound of the steamer throbbing its way across the Atlantic.