“Wait, wait! let me think. Left his children to me!... to me. Mr. Graves, had ’Bije lost all his money?”
“No. He was not the millionaire that many thought him. Miss Warren and her brother will be obliged to economize somewhat in their manner of living. But, with care and economy, their income should be quite sufficient, without touching the principal, to—”
“Hold on again; the income, you say. What is that income?”
“Roughly speaking, a mere estimate, about twenty to twenty-five thousand yearly.”
Captain Elisha had stooped to pick up the pipe he had dropped. His fingers touched it, but they did not close. Instead he straightened up in his chair as if suffering from an electric shock.
“Mr. Graves,” he began; “Mr. Graves, are you cra—. No, I asked you that before. But—but twenty thousand a—a year! For mercy sakes, what’s the principal?”
“In the neighborhood of five hundred thousand, I believe. Of course, we had no authority to investigate thoroughly. That will be a part of your duties, but—”
“S-shh! Let me soak this into my brains a little at a time. ’Bije leaves his children five hundred thousand, half a million, and—and they’ve got to economize! And I’m.... Would you mind readin’ me that will?”
The attorney drew a long envelope from his pocket, extracted therefrom a folded document, donned a pair of gold-mounted eyeglasses, and began to read aloud.
The will was short and very concise. “‘I, Abijah Rodgers Warren, being of sound mind—’”