Karl Grier : $b The strange story of a man with a sixth senseTracy, Louis
Science
Karl Grier : $b The strange story of a man with a sixth sense
Tracy, Louis
Psychic ability -- Fiction
Karl, beyond semi-humorous hints, said little about telegnomy. He
kept me duly advised of his progress in the University. During the
month of May of the year following Constantine’s death he obtained
that much-sought document of little future value which set forth
the degree of: “GRIER, KARL, é Coll. Æn. Fac., die 30° Mensis Maii,
Anni--Examinatus, prout Statuta requirunt,” and the rest of it. Then,
with other youthful sages, he wrote his name in a leather-covered book,
subscribed himself “Filius Generosis,” and was finally admitted “ad
gradum Baccalaurei in Artibus.”
He did not secure honors, and in this respect justified his father’s
fear that the adjectival sixth sense was anything but a help to him.
The truth was that Karl, to whom scholastic work was too easy, was
prone to dream away many an hour which might have been applied more
profitably from the “Ita testamur” point of view of the examiners.
He never alluded to Maggie in his letters, and his omission in this
respect reminds me that I also have been slow in recording the one
really interesting bit of news I learnt from Hooper when I met him in
New York.
After Constantine’s death, who do you think hunted up the whereabouts
of the girl and her mother and brought back into their lives, with
redoubled poignancy, the unhappy memory of a tragedy? None other than
Constantine’s solicitors! The unfortunate Armenian made a holograph
will in New York (which, though self-written, was quite to the point
and properly witnessed), leaving to Margaret Vane Hutchinson, daughter
of the late William Hutchinson, tea-planter, Darjeeling, Bengal (an
archaic description of Darjeeling), and at that present date residing
with her mother, Mrs. Alice Holroyd Hutchinson, in the Pall Mall Hotel,
London, England, “all the real and personal estate” of which he died
possessed. To account for this astounding bequest he stated that the
said “Margaret Vane Hutchinson is the woman I intend to marry,” a
written testimony of his views which is all the more to his credit
seeing that Steindal’s Mephistophelian method of securing the girl’s
submission contemplated no such honorable course. Indeed, I have
thought better of the Armenian ever since I heard of that clause in the
will.
Naturally, Constantine’s Armenian and Levantine relatives were
very wroth. They would have liked to torture with hot irons the
straightforward American secretary who found the will among his
employer’s papers, and took good care that it reached the hands of
the trustees and solicitors to the estate. They wanted to contest it
on various grounds, none creditable, it may be safely inferred, and
had the matter been left to the girl herself she would have executed
any legal transfer of the property to the disappointed crew without
consideration.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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