"Nothing," I replied. "I am following my instructions from Mr. Benham. They go no further than that."
He frowned into the fire.
"That's all very well as far as it goes, but it doesn't go far enough. Jerry is now eighteen. Do you realize that in three years he comes into possession of five million dollars, an income of over two hundred thousand a year; and that in seven years, at twenty-five, the executors must relinquish the entire estate?"
I had not thought of the imminence of this disaster.
"I was not aware, Mr. Ballard," I said. "At the present moment Jerry doesn't know a dollar from a nickel."
He opened his eyes wide and examined me as though he feared he had not heard correctly or as though it were blasphemy, heresy that I was uttering.
"You mean that he doesn't know the value and uses of money?"
"So far as I am aware," I replied coolly, "he has never seen a piece of money in his life."
"All wrong, all wrong, Canby. This won't do at all. He had his arithmetic, percentage and so forth?"
"Yes. But money doesn't interest him. Can you see any reason why it should?"