Meredith Nicholson

“ I was quite willing to be patronized by a man of years and experience; but Pickering was my own age, and his experience of life seemed to me preposterously inadequate. To find him settled in New York, where he had been established through my grandfather’s generosity, and the executor of my grandfather’s estate, was hard to bear. ”

“ You can tie up the estate for half a dozen years if you like,” he replied coolly. He did not look upon me as likely to become a formidable litigant. My staying qualities had been proved weak long ago, as Pickering knew well enough.
“No doubt you would like that,” I answered. “But I’m not going to give you the pleasure. I abide by the terms of the will. My grandfather was a fine old gentleman. I shan’t drag his name through the courts,—not even to please you, Arthur Pickering,” I declared hotly.
“The sentiment is worthy of a good man, Glenarm,” he rejoined. ”

“ My grandfather had been an odd little figure of a man, who always wore a long black coat and a silk hat, and carried a curious silver-headed staff, and said puzzling things at which everybody was afraid either to laugh or to cry. ”

“ Agatha’s School, at Annandale, Wabana County, Indiana, a corporation under the laws of said state. “For a touch of comedy commend me to my grandfather! Pickering, you always were a well-meaning fellow,—I’ll turn over to you all my right, interest and title in and to these angelic Sisters. Marry! I like the idea! I suppose some one will try to marry me for my money. Marriage, Pickering, is not embraced in my scheme of life!”
“I should hardly call you a marrying man,” he observed.
“Perfectly right, my friend! Sister Theresa was considered a possible match for my grandfather in my youth. ”

“ Even an unfinished house is worth something.”
“Land out there is worth from one hundred to one hundred and fifty dollars an acre. There’s an even hundred acres. I’ll be glad to have your appraisement of the house when you get there.”
“Humph! You flatter my judgment, Pickering. The loose stuff there is worth how much?”
“It’s all in the library. Your grandfather’s weakness was architecture—”
“So I remember!” I interposed, recalling my stormy interviews with John Marshall Glenarm over my choice of a profession. ”

“ I fear it’s going to be disappointing. In his trust-company boxes here I have been able to find only about ten thousand dollars’ worth of securities. Possibly— quite possibly—we were all deceived in the amount of his fortune. Sister Theresa wheedled large sums out of him, and he spent, as you will see, a small fortune on the house at Annandale without finishing it. It wasn’t a cheap proposition, and in its unfinished condition it is practically valueless. You must know that Mr. Glenarm gave away a great deal of money in his lifetime. Moreover, he established your father. ”

“ I am not writing an apology for my life, and I shall not attempt to extenuate my conduct in going abroad at the end of my course at Tech and, when I made Laurance Donovan’s acquaintance, in setting off with him on a career of adventure. ”