"But your estates?" I said; "your property which I have inherited?"
"Have you paid the registration fees?" he asked me, in a serious tone.
"Certainly I have, uncle."
"Well! Do you want to put me to double expense for the benefit of the government, which will make you pay it all over again at my real death?"
"What is it you mean to do, then?" said I.
"You shall keep them! Now's your turn," he added, in a chaffing tone; "all these forty years I have had the worry of them; it's your turn now, young man! You shall manage them, and make them your business; it will be for you now to pay my expenses and all that!"
"I hope you don't dream of such a thing, my dear uncle!" I exclaimed. "Why even, supposing that I continue to manage your property——"
"Excuse me," he said, "your property! It is yours, the fees having been duly paid."
"Well, our property, if you like," I replied, with a laugh; "all the same, I repeat you cannot remain smitten with civil death."
"Bah! Bah! Political notions! But first explain to me how I come to be dead—that puzzles me."