And how did you dispose of your fortune in the end?

I gave each an express promise to make him my heir; he believed, and treated me to more attentions than ever; meanwhile I had another genuine will, which was the one I left, with a message to them all to go hang.

Who was the heir by this one? one of your relations, I suppose.

Not likely; it was a handsome young Phrygian I had lately bought.

Age?

About twenty.

Ah, I can guess his office.

Well, you know, he deserved the inheritance much better than they did; he was a barbarian and a rascal; but by this time he has the best of society at his beck. So he inherited; and now he is one of the aristocracy; his smooth chin and his foreign accent are no bars to his being called nobler than Codrus, handsomer than Nireus, wiser than Odysseus.

Well, I don’t mind; let him be Emperor of Greece, if he likes, so long as he keeps the property away from that other crew.