"I'll tell you what he ought to do," said the lady. "He ought to make you a partner in the firm, and then he could go away and stay as long as he pleased."
"He can do that now," returned her husband. "He has made a good many trips since I have been with him, and things have gone on very much in the same way as when he is here. He knows that."
"But still you'd like to be a partner?"
"Oh, yes," said Mr. Canterfield.
"And common gratitude ought to prompt him to make you one," said his wife.
Mr. Tolman went home and wrote a will. He left all his property, with the exception of a few legacies, to the richest and most powerful charitable organization in the country.
"People will think I am crazy," said he to himself, "and if I should die while I am carrying out my plan, I will leave the task of defending my sanity to people who are able to make a good fight for me." And before he went to bed his will was signed and witnessed.
The next day he packed a trunk and left for the neighboring city. His apartments were to be kept in readiness for his return at any time. If you had seen him walking over to the railroad depot, you would have taken him for a man of forty-five.
When he arrived at his destination, Mr. Tolman established himself temporarily at a hotel, and spent the next three or four days in walking about the city looking for what he wanted. What he wanted was rather difficult to define, but the way in which he put the matter to himself was something like this:
"I would like to find a snug little place where, I can live, and carry on some business which I can attend to myself, and which will bring me into contact with people of all sorts—people who will interest me. It must be a small business, because I don't want to have to work very hard, and it must be snug and comfortable, because I want to enjoy it. I would like a shop of some sort, because that brings a man face to face with his fellow-creatures."