He
even began to plan vaguely how he should spend it.
However, he could not bring himself to open any of the papers, but sent
them instead to a lawyer, whom he knew his father had often consulted. A
few days later he received a typewritten letter asking him to call at
his earliest convenience.
It was at his residence and not at his office that Vandover saw the
lawyer, as the latter was not well at the time and kept to his bed.
However, he was not so sick but that his doctor allowed him to transact
at least some of his business. Vandover found him in his room, a huge
apartment, one side entirely taken up by book-shelves filled with works
of fiction. The walls were covered with rough stone-blue paper, forming
an admirable background to small plaster casts of Assyrian
_bas-reliefs_ and large photogravures of Renaissance portraits.
Underneath an enormous baize-covered table in the centre of the room
were green cloth bags filled apparently with books, padlocked tin
chests, and green pasteboard deed-boxes. The lawyer was sitting up in
bed, wearing his dressing-gown and occasionally drinking hot water from
a glass.
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