I only give you this conversation just to show you the sort of mood he was in when he came on his second visit. He hadn’t brought the Swedish gentleman with him to get into a temper with, and as he could not well go on at me and Harry, he went on the other tack, and turned melancholy.
I felt as if I should like to give him a good shaking; but, of course, I was obliged to be polite, so I said, “If you are dull when you’ve done your work, sir, I hope you will come downstairs and sit with us; my husband will be very pleased, I’m sure.”
“Thank you,” he said; and then he went upstairs, and presently when I passed his door I heard him giggling to himself, and presently he laughed right out loud.
I thought to myself, “I wonder what he’s so merry about all by himself,” so I knocked at the door, and made an excuse to go in.
He had several sheets of paper in front of him, and he was chuckling and writing, and grinning all over his face.
“Here, Mrs. Beckett,” he said, “what do you think of this for a will?”
“Good gracious, sir!” I said, “you’re not laughing over your will, are you?”
“Yes, I am. I can’t help it. It’s so jolly funny. Ha, ha, ha!”
He began to read his will to me, and presently, I couldn’t help it, I was obliged to laugh too. It was so utterly ridiculous. He had actually gone and made a comic will leaving the oddest things to people, and cracking jokes about everything, just as if it was the funniest thing in the world to say what’s to be done with your property when you’re dead.
“I say, Mrs. Beckett,” he said, “won’t it be a lark when the old lawyer reads this out? I hope he’ll be a good reader, and make the points. I’d give something to see the people when they hear it read. I hope they’ll be a good audience.”