“Again I fail to follow you, sir. But of course you are your own master; and in the event of your failure to call on us to-morrow morning you will be so good as to make us acquainted with your decision and intentions.” “I will send you, Mr. Fanshawe,” replies Bertram. The solicitor does not look everjoyed at the promise, but bows in silence, a very stiff and formal bow, and leaves the room without more words. “I am afraid I was not very polite to him,” says Bertram, doubtfully, when the stuffs of the _portière_ have fallen behind him. “You certainly were not,” replies Fanshawe. “I think you could give hints to Whistler on the Gentle Art of making Enemies. But why did you talk all that rot? He only ridiculed you for it.” “I merely said what I meant.” “You mean to let this fortune go to Magdalen College?” “Unless I change my present intentions very completely.” “Oh, Lord! This is green sickness, moonstruck madness; Hamlet’s monomania was nothing to it. Are you absolutely insensible to the fact that you would be able to print ten million copies of the _Age to Come_ every week and distribute them gratis all over Great Britain every week?” “Even that alluring prospect cannot tempt me. My acceptance of a fortune would be as anomalous as Lord Rosebery’s creation of peers. Miserable creatures that we are, we are only tolerably respectable so long as we are commonly consistent.” “Oh, Lord save us! You can’t possibly be serious?” “I speak in entire sincerity.” “A very dangerous thing to do at any time. People have such a shocking habit of taking one at one’s word! Old Folliott’s very shrewd too, though he’s a Tory.” “What is his shrewdness to me?” “Well, if you retain him as your man of business it may be a great deal. It is usual to retain the testator’s solicitors when they are as eminent and irreproachable as Folliott and Hake.” Bertram grows impatient. “Cannot you understand? I do not take this property. Do not dream of taking it for a single instant!” “You can’t be such a transcendent ass! Excuse me, but----” “I should have thought _you_ would have looked at this matter as I do.” “Dear boy, all property _ought_ to be abolished, on that we are quite agreed, but whilst it still exists in this piggish world we are bound in duty to ourselves and our neighbours to make the best of it, and get as much as we can!” “Then you are a mere sham? A humbug? A hypocrite?” “You mean to be rude, but I take no offence. Everybody is insincere in civilised countries.” “What an infamous theory! I have always thought that your Richmond villa, your house at Prince’s Gate, your swell garden parties, your blood horses, and all the rest of it, were ludicrously out of keeping with your political and literary declarations of opinion.”