"I didn't get much, either," he remarked.
"Well, that don't make it any better; besides, you have had as good as money from him long ago. Your position and mine aren't just the same."
"No, that's so," the lawyer admitted. "But what are you going to do about it?"
"I don't know yet. I want to think it over. How long"—he hesitated before finishing his thought.
"How long have you to give notice you want to contest? About three weeks," Wheeler replied coolly. "Of course you know that if you fight you'll put your mother's legacy in danger. And I rather guess Hollister and the judge wouldn't compromise."
"And you?"
Wheeler shrugged his shoulders.
"Oh, I suppose I should stick with the others."
Then Wheeler nodded and was off down the street. He did not appear to be surprised or disturbed by what his cousin had told him. Hart, pondering the matter in perplexity, continued on his way to the Canostota. There he found the foreman for the electrical contractor, and spent a busy hour explaining to the man the intricacies of the office blue prints. Then the steam-fitter got hold of him, and it was nearly five o'clock before he had time to think of himself or his own affairs. As he emerged from the basement by a hole left in the floor for the plumbers and steam-fitters to run their pipes through, he noticed a space where a section of the fireproof partition had been accidentally knocked out. Through this hole he could see one of the steel I-beams that supported the flooring above, where it had been drilled to admit the passing of a steam pipe. Something unusual in the appearance of the metal caught his eye, and he paused where he was, halfway out of the basement, to look at it again. The I-beam seemed unaccountably thin and slight. He felt in his pocket for a small rule that he usually carried with him. He was not quite familiar, even yet, with the material side of building in America; but he knew in a general way the weights and thicknesses of steel beams that were ordinarily specified in Wright's office for buildings of this size.
"How's this, Davidson?" he asked the steam-fitter, who was close at his heels. "Isn't that a pretty light fifteen-inch I-beam?"