H. J. received this intelligence almost with dismay. It took him back into the family councils, the family speculations as to Uncle Jocelyn's will, the family squabbles over Uncle Jocelyn's personal effects and their distribution, the family impatience at Uncle Jocelyn's unconscionable long time in dying. And the vision of it all irritated and weighed heavily on him. Often in Thrigsby he had said to himself that when Uncle Jocelyn died he would retire. And now Uncle Jocelyn was dead and he found his legacy rather a bewilderment than a relief. It was such a large sum of money that it made him fall back into his old sense of the grotesque in his relations with Mr. Copas and his galley, just when he was congratulating himself on being able to enter on his new life with real zest and energy. "No," he said, "that makes no difference. I shall stay where I am." "If there is ever any trouble," replied Robert, "I shall be only too glad to help." "Thank you." Robert tapped at his mustache and said: "I suppose being married won't interfere with your golf." "I'm afraid it will." This came very tartly. "Er. . . . Sorry." That had flicked Robert on the raw. He had been feeling indulgent toward his demented brother until his more than doubtful attitude toward ten thousand pounds. When that was followed with the renunciation of golf he was genuinely distressed and went away muttering behind his mustache: "I give it up. I give it up. 'Pon my honor. _Non compos,_ don't y'know, _non compos_." Nothing would induce Old Mole to visit Thrigsby again, and his solicitor had to send a clerk down with documents for his signature. When all the legal threads were tied up he told Matilda the extent of his fortune, and how he had been asked to return to his position at the school. "Are you sorry?" she asked. "No." "You sha'n't ever be, for me. Will you read to me now?" And he read the first two acts of "King Lear." "That isn't the play you were reading the other day. The one about Venice and the man who was such a good soldier."