"Anne?"
"Anne and Justin came straight over," Alix went on, "and they were really lovely. And they asked me to come to them for a visit--but I couldn't very well; they live with his mother, you know, Amanda Price Little, who writes the letters to the Chronicle about educating children and all that. Doctor Younger and George Sewall were here every day; you and George were named as executors. I was so mixed up in policies and deeds and overdue taxes and interest and bonds--"
"Poor old Alix, if I had only been here to help you!" the man said. And for a moment they looked a little consciously at each other.
"Well, anyway," the girl resumed hastily, "when it came to reading the will, Anne and Justin sprung a mine under us! It seems that ten years ago, when the Strickland Patent Fire Extinguisher was put upon the market, my adorable father didn't have much money--he never did have, somehow. So Anne's father, my Uncle Vincent, went into it with him to the extent of about three thousand dollars--"
"Three thousand!" Peter, who had been leaning forward, earnestly attentive, echoed in relief.
"That was all. Dad had about three hundred. They had to have a laboratory and some expensive retorts and things, it seems. Dad did all the work, and put in his three hundred, and Uncle Vincent put in three thousand--and the funny thing is," Alix broke off to say, musingly, "Uncle Vincent was perfectly splendid about it; I myself remember him saying, 'Don't worry, Lee. I'm speculating on my own responsibility, not yours.'"
"Well?" Peter prompted, as she hesitated.
"Well. They had a written agreement then, giving Uncle Vincent a third interest in the patent, should it be sold or put on the market--"
"Ha!" Peter ejaculated, struck.
"Which, of course, was only a little while before Uncle Vincent died," Alix went on, with a grave nod. "The agreement lay in Dad's desk all these years--fancy how easily he might have burned it many's the time! But he didn't. George Sewall says that Anne is right."