I wondered what the people in the Eastern cities would have thought of us if they had seen us marching down the street, ten of us, all with a brace of revolvers slung to our waists. The pedestrians got out of our way, and now and then some fellow, with a brace of revolvers on, would stop and look at us to see which way we were going. But we did not care for anybody. We kept close at Mr. Chisholm’s heels until he turned into a narrow doorway, and led us up a creaking pair of stairs. Upon arriving at the top he threw open a door, and we found ourselves in the presence of three or four men who sat leaning back in their chairs with their heels elevated higher than their heads, having a good time all by themselves. There were a lot of papers and books scattered about, and I took it at once for a lawyer’s office. They looked at us in surprise as we entered, and one of the men took his feet down from the desk.
“Shut the door, Lem,” said Mr. Chisholm. “Now, which of you men is it who proves the wills? You see,” he added, turning with an air of apology to the other men in the room, “these fellows are mostly remembered in the will, and so I brought them along. I never proved a will before, and so I wanted men enough to back me up.”
“That is all right,” said the surrogate. “Where’s the will?”
Mr. Chisholm produced his pocket-book, Bob’s pocket-book, rather, the one that had taken Tom and me on a four weeks’ journey into the country, and produced the papers, while the rest of us stood around and waited for him to read them. The lawyer read it in a free-and-easy manner until he came to the place where Bob was spoken of as worth half a million dollars, and then he suddenly became interested.
“Where’s the man?” said he.
“Here he is, right here,” said Mr. Chisholm. “It is a big sum of money for him to be worth, but he is big enough to carry it.”
“Why, sit down, gentlemen! If you can’t get chairs enough to accommodate you, sit on the table. A half a million dollars! Does anybody challenge this will?”
“Not that I know of,” answered Mr. Chisholm. “It is all there, and we want it all, every bit.”
“Well, I’ll have it for you in half an hour,” answered the lawyer. “Suppose you come in again in that time.”
“No, sir! Our time is worth nothing, and if it is all the same to you, we’ll have that will before we go out. When I get through here I have got to go to the bank. Take your time. We want it done up right.”