"Look here!" he returned obstinately. "I'll be hanged if I understand. You say this paper has no legal value and yet it is in my father's own hand and practically attached to his will. Now, apart from any--er--moral question involved, just why isn't this letter binding on me?" Tutt smiled leniently. "Have a cigarette?" he asked, and when Payson took one, he added sympathetically as he held a match for him, "Your attitude, my dear sir, does you credit. It is wholly right and natural that you should instinctively desire to uphold that which on its face appears to be a wish of your father. But all the same that letter isn't worth the paper it's written on--as matter of law." "But why not?" demanded Payson. "What better evidence could the courts desire of the wishes of a testator than such a letter?" "The reason is simple enough!" replied Tutt, settling himself in a comfortable position. "In the eye of the law no property is ever without an owner. It is always owned by somebody, although the ownership may be in dispute. When a man dies his real property instantly passes to his heirs and his personal property descends in accordance to the local statute of distributions or, if there isn't any, to his next of kin; but if he leaves a will, to the extent to which it is valid, it diverts the property from its natural legal destination. Thus, in effect, the real purpose of a will is to prevent the laws operating on one's estate after death. If your father had died intestate, you would have instantly become, in contemplation of law, the owner of all his property. His will--his legal will--deprives you of a small part of it for the benefit of others. But the law is exceedingly careful about recognizing such an intention of a testator to prevent the operation of the statutes and requires him to demonstrate the sincerity and fixity of that intention by going through various established formalities, such as putting his intention in due form in a written instrument which he must sign and declare to be his last will before a certain number of competent witnesses whom he requests to sign as such and who actually do sign as such in his presence and in the presence of each other. Your father obviously did none of these things when he placed this letter with his will." "But isn't a letter ever enough--under any circumstances?" inquired Payson. "Well," said Tutt. "It is true that under certain exceptional circumstances a man may make what is known as a nuncupative will." "What is a--a--nuncupative will?" asked his client. "Technically it is an oral will, operating on personality only, made in extremis--that is, actually in fear of death--and under our statutes limited to soldiers in active military service or to mariners at sea. Under the old common law it was just as effective to pass personal estate as a written instrument."