Two Boys and a Fortune Part 2

The question came so suddenly and in such contrasted tones to the mumble in which the miser had heretofore been speaking that for the moment Roy was too startled to make reply.

"No, I'm not raving, Roy Pell," went on the old man. "There's a possibility--" he checked himself quickly-- "what would you do with all that money if you had it?"

"I'd give it to my mother," answered Roy.

"Good boy, of course. I didn't think of that. You're a minor, and you're not selfish. You'd rather she would have it, eh, than that it should be held by her in trust for you? But if you got it, you'd promise to see that it was spent, and not h.o.a.rded as I have h.o.a.rded mine? You'd promise that wouldn't you?"

Roy by this time began to think that the partial sunstroke had completely unhinged Mr. Tyler's brain, already a little out of plumb.

"Oh, yes," he laughed. "There's no danger of our h.o.a.rding money. There are too many things to spend it on for that."

"Then you're squeezed a little down at your place, eh?"

"Oh, we can get along," returned Roy hastily; "but we can't do much branching out. My mother has only the income from father's insurance, and then there's the place which we own, with the taxes to pay."

The old man now relapsed into silence. He seemed to be thinking, deeply. Suddenly he started up and exclaimed:

"It must be nearly time for Sydney to be here. Won't you go outside and watch for him?"

Roy was very glad to leave the miser. He realized that perhaps it was wrong for him to feel that way, but then, believing him to be a little unbalanced, it was but natural that he should be sensible of some constraint in his presence.

"I wonder if be has got $500,000 put away somewhere?" he asked himself when he reached the little portico. "He talked exactly as if he was going to give it to me. I suppose for what I did for him on the bridge. That would be just like a story episode, so much like one that there's no chance of its coming true. But what would Rex say if it did? Ah, here comes Syd."

Roy left the porch and hurried out to the gate to meet the fellow who had been nearer and dearer to him than a brother as far back as he could remember.

"Poor old chap," he said as they met and he turned around, slipping his arm within that of the tall young lawyer, "it was a shame to make you walk all that distance in the hot sun when you must be tired out from your day in town. But there's a job at the end of the walk."

"And a cheerful brother, too," added the other. "Poor Rex! I saw him over at the station. He takes it terribly to heart that he cannot go off with the Bowmans. I wish I were rich, if only for you boys' sakes.

But what's this heroic deed I hear of your doing for old Mr. Tyler?

Positively, Roy, I'm proud of you."

"Oh, the train didn't come along for a good five minutes after I'd got him off the trestle. You see that takes a good deal of the 'heroic rescue' business out of the thing. But come on inside. He's been quite anxious to see you. I've made him lie down, for I think he's in a very bad way."

CHAPTER III

MR. TYLER'S WILL

"Is that you, Sydney Pell?" called out Mr. Tyler as soon as he heard footsteps in the hallway.

"Yes, Mr. Tyler, What can I do for you?" and Sydney followed Roy into the bedroom.

"You can make my will," replied the old man promptly. "That doesn't mean that I am going to die right away," he added hastily, "but I've had a warning. Why, I may have time to make two or three wills before I give up the s.h.i.+p."

He laughed hoa.r.s.ely and started to get up. But he was weaker than he supposed, and fell back on the bed with a little gasp just as he had done out by the trestle.

"Don't exert yourself too much, Mr. Tyler," said Sydney. "I can fix the thing up for you while you are lying right here. I think I saw a bottle of ink and some paper in the other room. Roy can help me bring in that table that stands there, and then I can take down whatever you wish and you can sign it. But you will want witnesses."

"There's Ann, she can be one," responded the old man.

"And I told the girls to send a doctor up here. He can be another,"

put in Roy. Then he added, when all was arranged: "I suppose I had better go out."

"Yes, you can go out and watch for the doctor," said Sydney. "Now then," he went on, turning to Mr. Tyler when they were alone, and after he had written out the regulation formal preamble, "I am ready."

The miser said nothing in reply for a minute or two. He kept interlocking his wasted fingers with one another, glancing now and then out of the window, where he could see Roy pacing back and forth in front of the cottage. Finally he murmured so low that Sydney was obliged to bend forward to catch the words:

"Would you be surprised to hear that I had a vast amount of money in the deposit companies in Philadelphia?"

"No, Mr. Tyler," replied Sydney. "It has always been supposed that you were a man of wealth."

"I am, I am," muttered the miser. "I have something like half a million. And yet what good has it done me? I have h.o.a.rded it just for the sake of h.o.a.rding. It began to come to me when I was quite young. I was surprised. Some property was wanted by the city. They paid me well for it. I invested what I got and doubled it, I kept on making money till I loved it for itself alone and could not bear to part with it even on the chance of making more. So I left it all to draw interest except what little it takes to support me in the poor way in which I live."

He paused and Sydney adjudged it proper to inquire.

"Then you have no relatives, no one dependent on you?"

"I have outlived them all," was the reply. "There was a boy, though, who was once in my employ and whom I came to think a good deal of. But he grew up and went into stocks and tried to bear the market against me. I never forgave Maurice Darley for that. And yet I loved him once.

I brought him up, out of the gutter, as it were, and there was a time when he loved me. There is another brother in your family whom I see sometimes and who reminds me of him."

"Reginald-- Rex, as we call him-- you mean?"

"Yes, but perhaps he would not have done for me what Roy did this afternoon. You have heard of it. He risked his life for mine. He will make a good man. I am sure of it. And he is unselfish. To make him happy you must make others happy around him. Yes, I will do it. Quick, write down that I leave all my fortune unreservedly, to-- what is his full name?"

"Whose full name?" Sydney had dropped his pen and sat staring at Mr.

Tyler as if in a daze.

"Why your brother-- Roy Pell's."

"Royal Fillmore Pell," Sydney repeated the name mechanically, still too amazed at the inference he must draw from the question to be really conscious of what he was saying.

"Thank you. A fine name it is, and fitted to a splendid boy. Then write-- but no. I had determined not to leave it to him. What is his mother's name? She must have it all outright. Then it can be used at once in the way to please Roy best. Now Mrs. Pell's full name?"

"Jessica Fillmore Pell. I suppose, as a lawyer, I ought not to express any surprise at what you are doing, but you can see how close home it comes to me, Mr. Tyler. You know the relation in which I stand to this family, with whom I am connected by no ties of blood, but who have been so good to me."

"And you have deserved it, young man. I am not leaving money to a family of whom I know nothing. Have you got that: all my fortune unreservedly to Jessica Fillmore Pell?"

"Yes, Mr. Tyler."

"Roy knows something of this, and if people think it strange or hint that I am out of my head to leave my money in this way, you can tell them what he did for me this afternoon. That ought to satisfy them.

Now I want to tell you where my money is invested so that you can get at it easily, for I want you, Sydney, to be one of my executors, and I will take Dr. Martin for the other. Here he comes now. We will continue this business presently."

Roy came in with the doctor; a cheery man, whom everybody in the neighborhood liked.

"Doctor," began Mr. Tyler, before the physician could say anything, "I want you to witness my will. Roy, run out to the kitchen and get Ann to come in here."

"Ann," said Roy, appearing in the rear regions, "Mr. Tyler wants you to come out and witness his will."

"Is the poor man dying then?" exclaimed the woman, looking frightened.