“My dear Richard, we have done with it long since,” replied Sir Joseph. “Have you really not heard what I have been saying for the last quarter of an hour to good Mr. Dicas here? What can you have been thinking of?”
Turlington did not attempt to answer the question. “Am I interested,” he asked, “in what you have been saying to Mr. Dicas?”
“You shall judge for yourself,” answered Sir Joseph, mysteriously; “I have been giving Mr. Dicas his instructions for making my Will. I wish the Will and the Marriage-Settlement to be executed at the same time. Read the instructions, Mr. Dicas.”
Sir Joseph’s contemplated Will proved to have two merits—it was simple and it was short. Excepting one or two trifling legacies to distant relatives, he had no one to think of (Miss Lavinia being already provided for) but his daughter and the children who might be born of her marriage. In its various provisions, made with these two main objects in view, the Will followed the precedents established in such cases. It differed in no important respect from the tens of thousands of other wills made under similar circumstances. Sir Joseph’s motive in claiming special attention for it still remained unexplained, when Mr. Dicas reached the clause devoted to the appointment of executors and trustees; and announced that this portion of the document was left in blank.
“Sir Joseph Graybrooke, are you prepared to name the persons whom you appoint?” asked the lawyer.
Sir Joseph rose, apparently for the purpose of giving special importance to the terms in which he answered his lawyer’s question.
“I appoint,” he said, “as sole executor and trustee—Richard Turlington.”
It was no easy matter to astonish Mr. Dicas. Sir Joseph’s reply absolutely confounded him. He looked across the table at his client and delivered himself on this special occasion of as many as three words.
“Are you mad?” he asked.
Sir Joseph’s healthy complexion slightly reddened. “I never was in more complete possession of myself, Mr. Dicas, than at this moment.”