“Beric will hate being left out,” he murmured; on the whole he was getting considerable fun out of this ante-mortem duty. But it was a bore to die, an awful bore, just when he had come into things and could do what he liked; he moved restlessly and uneasily on his bed while the lawyer wrote out the clauses of the testament, hastening as much as he could, for he saw that every breath might be his client’s last. When the witnesses were called in, oxygen was given to the dying man, and he rallied enough to sit up in his servant’s arms and sign “Otterbourne” legibly, in that clear handwriting which he had learned at Eton, and which had signed so much “bad paper.” “I couldn’t do much, but I’ve done what I could,” he said feebly, as the pen fell from his fingers. “To be damned disagreeable to ’em all round,” he concluded, as his cough permitted him to complete the phrase. “What a Christian spirit!” murmured the vicar of the village, who was present to witness the will, and had not heard the concluding sentence. “Shut up!” said Cocky feebly but viciously. “You parsons are just like ravens, always comin’ and cawin’ where anybody’s bein’ snuffed out; birds of ill-omen, you are--marryin’ and buryin’--he, he!” The scared vicar looked aghast at the polished London physician. “The mind wanders: the end is near,” murmured that bland person, with a professional sigh. Mr. Curton shook his head as he folded up the document. It was all very painful to the excellent lawyer; it destroyed all his theories of the nobility; and to make a ducal will in a hurry seemed to him almost like _leze-majesty_. “Oh, my dear sir,” he murmured, in sad and useless regret, “why, oh, why leave such a document as this to such a moment?” “Always thought the pater’d outlive me,” murmured Cocky; “so he would--twenty years--if that byke hadn’t upset him.” Mouse, sweet, resigned, composed, regretful, came noiselessly into the chamber of death, leading Jack by the hand, very sober and a little frightened, with his beautiful black eyes wide open and fixed in a vague terror on the bed. “Dear little angel!” murmured the vicar, at whom Jack was wont to aim paper pellets in church. Mouse approached the bedside. “Beric is here, dear,” she said gently. “He begs to see you. May he come in? Ronald is here, too.” “Goody-goody and the Miser?” said her husband, in a muffled faint voice. “No; tell ’em both to go to the devil.” Cocky closed his eyes, and lay to all outward semblance unconscious and indifferent to worldly things; the worn-out lungs drawing in desperately a few last breaths of air. Who shall say what vain regrets for lost opportunities, for wasted talents, for foolish and fruitless hours, were in his thoughts? He looked already dead, save for the slight labored heaving of his chest beneath the bedclothes.