"Uncle Harry!" exclaimed Paul with shining eyes. "After all the letters I wrote him asking him to do something for me, and getting nothing out of him but hot air and advice, he dies and leaves me his fortune! Well, that is what I call handsome of him!"
He did not know his uncle Harry personally; Henry Clay Manley had gone to the West before Paul was born, and had never revisited New York. Paul had then no sentiment toward him, other than the anomalous kindliness which anyone must feel toward a stranger who has been good enough to die and leave him money. He was even able to see that his uncle had shown foresight and wisdom in turning down his begging letters.
He scalded his mouth with hot coffee, and ran from the lunchroom to the subway kiosk. He saved a nickel by running the three blocks; he saved another nickel by dropping into the turnstile at the station a metal slug which a shifty-eyed street fakir had sold him at six for five, and which was as good as a nickel for all the purposes of the Transit Company, save one. Paul beat his fare when he could, and refused to see harm in it; it cost the traction company nothing extra to carry him, whereas paying his fare would have made to him the poignant difference of a nickel.
He entered the Mutual Life building at 32 Nassau Street and wandered through the ramifying halls of that commodious and old-fashioned structure until he found a door upon whose ground glass was lettered Beaks & Sipperman.
Mr. Beaks was at his piled desk in his private room. He was a big, old man with faded blue eyes; his manner was suave and cold.
"I'm in conference, Miss Prouty, until Mr. Manley leaves," he said to the office-girl. "Don't disturb me. Sit here, Mr. Manley."
He picked a red-ribboned document from a pigeonhole, snapped it open, stared at it, and blew through his lips softly and reflectively.
"This is your uncle's will. Did you know him very well?"
"Never saw him. He always lived out West."