"He did advise me to put them away, as he thought perhaps we ought to take care of them," Mrs. Drake admitted.
"I hate the chap," muttered George.
"I was afraid Aunt Sophy might break them. She is always knocking things over. She takes an ornament from the mantelpiece, and when she tries to put it back she misjudges the distance. It's the same with tables and teacups. She has broken such a lot of crockery."
"Uncle said I was to have the vases and everything else that belonged to him," said George firmly.
"Oh, you needn't worry," Mrs. Drake replied. "Now that you are really going to work for your living, I will let you into a little secret. When I married your uncle he insisted upon going to a lawyer and making his will leaving everything to me, although the dear fellow had nothing to leave except his odds and ends. So then of course I made a will leaving everything to him, although I thought I had nothing to leave; but the lawyer explained that any money I should have in the bank, together with the proportion of income reckoned up to the day of my death, would go to him. Then we adopted you, so I went to the lawyer again, and he put on something called a codicil, which said that, in the event of uncle dying first, everything that I left would go to you."
"Then there is no reason why I should work for my living," said George cheerfully.
"How are you going to live upon the interest of two or three hundred pounds?"
"A man of simple tastes can do with very little," declared the nephew.
Fruit grower and prospective railway magnate went off together on Friday morning, but the only despatch to reach Windward House came from Percy, who announced he had reached his mortgaged premises in perfect safety, after leaving George upon the platform of Waterloo station surrounded by officials. This might have signified anything. Mrs. Drake supposed it meant that all the great men of the railway had assembled to greet their new colleague upon his arrival. What it did mean was that Percy had freed himself of responsibility at the earliest possible moment, abandoning his cousin to a knot of porters who claimed the honour and distinction of dealing with his baggage, which probably they supposed was the property of a gentleman about to penetrate into one of the unexplored corners of the earth.
Not a postcard came from George. He disappeared completely; but Mrs. Drake was delighted to think he was attending to his new duties so strenuously as to be unable to write; while Miss Yard remembered him only once, and then remarked in a reverential whisper that she would very much like to visit his grave.