There, then, you have the late James Tantamount—bluff, greedy, generous, but blessed or cursed with an incorrigible love of what are called ‘practical’ jokes. It was not his fault. He had been bred upon them. To the day of his death he could recall with tearful relish the memory of his father, amid roars of laughter, pursuing the vicar round the dining-room, while the doctor blew frantically upon a hunting horn and other guests arranged recumbent chairs as timber to be leaped. . . . If such a passionate propensity had not asserted itself in death, it would have been surprising. To lovers of fun, riches and a Will offer the chance of a lifetime. The tragedy of it is, they are not alive to enjoy the jest. When James Tantamount, of Palfrey, left his vast fortune to his nephew and his ward upon the condition that they should marry, he knew he was being funny. He had no conception, however, that he was perpetrating the joke of his career. The news of the old fellow’s death had sent hopes soaring. It was generally assumed that his nephew and ward would each receive half of his fortune. For a few days, therefore, the two enjoyed undreamed-of popularity, as a highly desirable couple, and frantic efforts were made by countless matrons to catch their respective eyes. All wrote: some called: others sent flowers. The hearts that ‘went out’ to them in their ‘irreparable loss’ argued an esteem for the late James Tantamount hitherto too deep to be expressed. _There is a grief_, wrote Mrs. Closeley Dore to Virgil, too _deep to talk about . . . . As soon as you feel able, come and spend a few days at Datchet. You shall do as you please, and use the house as an hotel. Bring your man, of course. . . ._ The Closeley Dores had four daughters. _My child_, wrote Mrs. Sheraton Forbes to Sarah, _I know so well that dreadful sense of loneliness, which gnaws the aching heart. Come back to Fairlands with us on Saturday. We will leave you entirely to yourself, but I should like to think that my dear old friend’s sweet ward had someone to turn to in this darkest hour. The world is so hard. . . ._ Mrs. Sheraton Forbes had three sons. It was a dreadful business. . . . Then the announcement appeared, and the sympathy died down. It was generally, if grudgingly, admitted that Virgil and Sarah had done the right thing. Crestfallen mothers, consoled by the reflection that, even if they had lost the prize, nobody else had won it, agreed that it was what ‘that old Tantamount’ would have wished. Some said, sniffing, that his death had drawn the two together. Finally, the contents of the Will had become public property. The effect upon the matrons of Mayfair was electrical. With, I think, the slightest encouragement, the late millionaire would have been burned in effigy. As for the two legatees, the outburst of execration with which their determination was posthumously and somewhat illogically received, beggars description.