Is there
anything
more left?
Kipling - Poems
" He tore off half
the sheet and began again with the caution about the handwriting.
Then: "I leave all the money I possess in the world to"--here followed
Maisie's name, and the names of the two banks that held the money.
"It mayn't be quite regular, but no one has a shadow of a right to
dispute it, and I've given Maisie's address. Come in, Mr. Beeton.
This is my signature; I want you and your wife to witness it. Thanks.
Tomorrow you must take me to the landlord and I'll pay forfeit for
leaving without notice, and I'll lodge this paper with him in case
anything happens while I'm away. Now we're going to light up the studio
stove. Stay with me, and give me my papers as I want 'em. "
No one knows until he has tried how fine a blaze a year's accumulation
of bills, letters, and dockets can make. Dick stuffed into the stove
every document in the studio--saving only three unopened letters;
destroyed sketch-books, rough note-books, new and half-finished canvases
alike.
"What a lot of rubbish a tenant gets about him if he stays long enough
in one place, to be sure," said Mr. Beeton, at last.
"He does.
Is there anything more left? " Dick felt round the walls.
"Not a thing, and the stove's nigh red-hot. "
"Excellent, and you've lost about a thousand pounds' worth of sketches.
Ho! ho! Quite a thousand pounds' worth, if I can remember what I used to
be. "
"Yes, sir," politely. Mr. Beeton was quite sure that Dick had gone mad,
otherwise he would have never parted with his excellent furniture for a
song. The canvas things took up storage room and were much better out of
the way.
There remained only to leave the little will in safe hands: that could
not be accomplished til tomorrow. Dick groped about the floor picking
up the last pieces of paper, assured himself again and again that there
remained no written word or sign of his past life in drawer or desk,
and sat down before the stove till the fire died out and the contracting
iron cracked in the silence of the night.
CHAPTER XV
With a heart of furious fancies,
Whereof I am commander;
With a burning spear and a horse of air,
To the wilderness I wander.
With a knight of ghosts and shadows
I summoned am to tourney--
Ten leagues beyond the wide world's end,
Methinks it is no journey.
--Tom o' Bedlam's Song
"Goodbye, Bess; I promised you fifty.
the sheet and began again with the caution about the handwriting.
Then: "I leave all the money I possess in the world to"--here followed
Maisie's name, and the names of the two banks that held the money.
"It mayn't be quite regular, but no one has a shadow of a right to
dispute it, and I've given Maisie's address. Come in, Mr. Beeton.
This is my signature; I want you and your wife to witness it. Thanks.
Tomorrow you must take me to the landlord and I'll pay forfeit for
leaving without notice, and I'll lodge this paper with him in case
anything happens while I'm away. Now we're going to light up the studio
stove. Stay with me, and give me my papers as I want 'em. "
No one knows until he has tried how fine a blaze a year's accumulation
of bills, letters, and dockets can make. Dick stuffed into the stove
every document in the studio--saving only three unopened letters;
destroyed sketch-books, rough note-books, new and half-finished canvases
alike.
"What a lot of rubbish a tenant gets about him if he stays long enough
in one place, to be sure," said Mr. Beeton, at last.
"He does.
Is there anything more left? " Dick felt round the walls.
"Not a thing, and the stove's nigh red-hot. "
"Excellent, and you've lost about a thousand pounds' worth of sketches.
Ho! ho! Quite a thousand pounds' worth, if I can remember what I used to
be. "
"Yes, sir," politely. Mr. Beeton was quite sure that Dick had gone mad,
otherwise he would have never parted with his excellent furniture for a
song. The canvas things took up storage room and were much better out of
the way.
There remained only to leave the little will in safe hands: that could
not be accomplished til tomorrow. Dick groped about the floor picking
up the last pieces of paper, assured himself again and again that there
remained no written word or sign of his past life in drawer or desk,
and sat down before the stove till the fire died out and the contracting
iron cracked in the silence of the night.
CHAPTER XV
With a heart of furious fancies,
Whereof I am commander;
With a burning spear and a horse of air,
To the wilderness I wander.
With a knight of ghosts and shadows
I summoned am to tourney--
Ten leagues beyond the wide world's end,
Methinks it is no journey.
--Tom o' Bedlam's Song
"Goodbye, Bess; I promised you fifty.
