“I am not in the habit of joking, sir, either in business or outside it. We were solicitors to his father and to himself. We drew up this will five years ago. You are inheritor of an immense fortune, Mr. Bertram.” Bertram stands staring at him, then turns to Fanshawe. “Do you hear? Is it true? Surely, no one could insult me so greatly, even in jest?” “I really do not understand,” says the lawyer, bewildered. “What insult can there be? I am speaking, sir, in most sober earnest.” “Shall I fan you, Wilfrid? or send for some sal volatile?” says Fanshawe, derisively. “Don’t be an ass,” he adds in a whisper. “This sensible old fellow will think it his duty to shut you up in a private mad-house, if you talk like that. Pull yourself together, and answer him sensibly.” Mr. Folliott surveys the speaker as a timid person may look at a lion riding on a velocipede in a circus-ring. “If Mr. Bertram would place me in communication with his solicitor matters would be facilitated,” he murmurs. “I have no solicitors,” replies Bertram. “If you will pardon what may seem an offensive opinion, I regard all men of law as poisonous parasites growing on the rotten trunk of a society which has the axe of retribution laid at its roots.” Mr. Folliott is too astonished to be offended: “I fail to follow you, sir, but I have no doubt you mean something very profound. Your cousin did not, I imagine, read your articles in the reviews, but I have read one or two of them. However, notwithstanding your extraordinary opinions, you are a man of birth and breeding, and must, in a measure, be a man of the world, sir. You must know that you must allow me to fulfil my office. This will has to be proved and probate taken out.” “Where is the necessity?” “Be so good as not to play with me. You must accept the inheritance or decline it. In event of your refusal, of your formal and final refusal, the whole of this property is to go to the testator’s old college at Oxford--Magdalen College.” “Ah! that is a consolation.” “Why so, sir?” “Because, although I have no sympathy with the modern movements at Oxford, and consider that she has fallen away from her original high mission, yet she is, and always will be, a seat of learning; and the Humanities will never wholly be banished from her halls.” “Again, I fail to follow you sir.” “I mean that such an alternative destination for the property will enable me to decline it with a clear conscience.” “Really, sir, your replies are wholly unintelligible.” Bertram turns helplessly to Fanshawe. “Explain to this gentleman my views regarding property.” “I am aware of some of them, sir,” replies the solicitor, sententiously. “You read the _Torch_, Mr. Folliott, don’t you?” says the proprietor of the _Torch_. “When my professional duties compel me, sir.” “But the _Torch_ is milk for lambs, Mr. Folliott, beside the _Age to Come_.”