I smiled. I knew I had him -- if he'd thought it that far through, he wasn't going to say no. Besides, I hadn't even played my trump card yet: that if he didn't help me, I'd be out on the streets on my own, and I could tell that he didn't like that idea. # Mr Adelson wore his teacher clothes for the affair and I wore the good breeches and shirt I'd packed. We stopped at a barber's before, Mr Adelson treated me to a haircut from the number-two man while he took a shave and a trim. We boarded the cablecar to Market like a couple of proper gentlemen, and if I thought flying in a jetpack was exciting, it was nothing compared to the terror of hanging on the running-board of a cablecar as it laboured up and then -- quickly! -- down a monster hill. The lawyer was a foreigner, a Frenchie or a Belgian, and his offices were grubby and filled with stinking cigar smoke and the din of the trolleys. He asked no embarrassing questions of me. He just sized up Mr Adelson, then put away the papers on his desk and presented a set from his briefcase, laying out the terms of the trust, and retreated from the office. I read over Mr Adelson's shoulder, the terms scribbled in a hasty hand, but every word of it legal and binding, near as I could tell. The amounts in question were staggering. Two hundred dollars, every month! Indexed for inflation, for seventy years or the duration of my natural life, whichever was lesser. The records of the trust to be deposited with the Wells Fargo, subject to scrutiny on demand. Mr Adelson looked long and hard at me. "James, I can't begin to imagine what sort of information you've traded for this, but son, you're rich as Croesus!" "Yes, sir," I said. "Do these papers look legal to you?" "Yes, sir." "They seem legal to me, too." A bubble of excitement filled my chest and I had to restrain myself from bouncing on my heels. "I'm going to sign it," I said. "Will you witness it?" "I've got a better idea. Let's get that lawyer and take this down to the Wells Fargo and have the President of the Bank witness it himself." And that's just what we did. # Mr Adelson had spent the previous night on the floor, while I slept in his bed. My first month's payment was tucked carefully in my pocket, and over his protests, I pried loose a few bills and took my own room in the rooming house, and then the two of us ate out at a restaurant whose prices had seemed impossibly out-of-reach the day before. We had oysters and steaks and I had a slab of apple pie for desert with fresh ice cream and peach syrup, and when I was done, I felt like new man. Mr Adelson had a bottle of beer with dinner, and a whiskey afterwards, and I insisted on paying. "Well, then," he said, sipping his whiskey. "You're a very well-set-up young man. What will you do now?"