"Perhaps, Uncle Peter, you will not refuse to give me some information about my grandfather's estate, Greylands' Rest," he began. "My father always assured me it would be mine. He said it would come to him at his father's death, and then to me afterwards----"
"He must have spoken without justifiable warranty," interrupted the banker. "It did not necessarily lapse to Basil, or to anyone else. Your grandfather could leave it to whom he would."
"Of course: we never understood otherwise. But my father always said that it would never be left away from him."
"Then I say, that he spoke without sufficient warranty," repeated the banker. "Am I to understand that you have come over to this country to put in a claim to Greylands' Rest, on this sole justification?"
"My father, on his dying bed, charged me to come and claim it, Uncle Peter. He had bequeathed it to me in his will. It was only quite at the last that he learnt his father was dead, and he made a fresh will at once, and gave me the charge to come over without delay. When I presented myself to my uncle James yesterday, he seemed much to resent the fact that I should put in any claim to the estate. He told me I had no right to do so; he said it was his."
"Well?" said the banker; for the young man had paused.
"Uncle Peter, I am not unreasonable. I come home to find my uncle James in possession of the estate, and quite ready, as I gather, to oppose my claim to it; or, I should better say, to treat me and my claim with contempt. Now I do not forget that my grandfather might have left it to uncle James; that he had the power to do so----"
"Most undoubtedly he had," again interrupted the banker. "And I can tell you that he never, to the very last, allowed anybody to interfere with his wish and will."
"Well, I say I am not unreasonable, Uncle Peter. Though I have come over to claim the estate, I should not attempt to lay claim to it in the teeth of facts. I told my uncle James so. Once let me be convinced that the estate was really and fairly bequeathed to him, and I would not, for the world, wish to disturb him in its possession. I am not a rogue."
"But he is in possession, Anthony; and it appears that you do wish to disturb him," remonstrated Mr. Peter Castlemaine.