THE LETTER
He tore open the letters abstractedly: the usual dinner-card or two, a tailor’s spring announcement, a chronic serial from an exclamatory marble-quarrying company, a quarterly statement of a club house-committee. The last two missives bore a nondescript look.
One was small, with the name of a legal firm in its corner. The other was largish, corpulent and heavy, of stout Manila paper, and bore, down one side, a gaudy procession of postage stamps proclaiming that it had been registered.
“What’s in that, I wonder?” he said to himself, and then, with a smile at the unmasculine speculation, opened the smaller envelope.
“Dear Sir,” began the letter, in the most uncompromisingly conventional of typewriting:
“Dear Sir:
“Enclosed please find, with title-deed, a memorandum opened in your name by the late John Valiant some years before his death. It was his desire that the services indicated in connection with this estate should continue till this date. We hand you herewith our check for $236.20 (two hundred and thirty-six dollars and twenty cents), the balance in your favor, for which please send receipt,
“And oblige,
“Yours very truly,
“Emerson and Ball.
“(Enclosure)”
He turned to the memorandum. It showed a sizable initial deposit against which was entered a series of annual tax payments with minor disbursements credited to “Inspection and care.” The tax receipts were pinned to the account.