'Only what you told me in your letter.'
'Well, I'm hanged! Tell me—I hadn't the honour of knowing him personally—was the late Mr Nutcombe's whole life as eccentric as his will-making? It seems to me—'
Nutty spoke.
'Uncle Ira's middle name,' he said, 'was Bloomingdale. That,' he proceeded, bitterly, 'is the frightful injustice of it all. I had to suffer from it right along, and all I get, when it comes to a finish, is a miserable hundred dollars. Uncle Ira insisted on father and mother calling me Nutcombe; and whenever he got a new craze I was always the one he worked it off on. You remember the time he became a vegetarian, Elizabeth? Gosh!' Nutty brooded coldly on the past. 'You remember the time he had it all worked out that the end of the world was to come at five in the morning one February? Made me stop up all night with him, reading Marcus Aurelius! And the steam-heat turned off at twelve-thirty! I could tell you a dozen things just as bad as that. He always picked on me. And now I've gone through it all he leaves me a hundred dollars!'
Mr Nichols nodded sympathetically.
'I should have imagined that he was rather like that. You know, of course, why he made that will I wrote to you about, leaving all his money to Bill Dawlish? Simply because Bill, who met him golfing at a place in Cornwall in the off season, cured him of slicing his approach-shots! I give you my word that was the only reason. I'm sorry for old Bill, poor old chap. Such a good sort!'
'He's all right,' said Nutty. 'But why you should be sorry for him gets past me. A fellow who gets five million—'
'But he doesn't, don't you see?'
'How do you mean?'
'Why, this other will puts him out of the running.'