windfall. 'Four per cent!' he cried, when I told him this was the extent
of my expectations. 'Why, you're talking like a trustee.' And then seeing
that his meaning was beyond me, he explained in his bluff, humorous
manner. 'All a trustee cares for you know, is his reputation for safety.
It's not his own income he's nursing, and so he doesn't care how small he
makes it, provided only that his investments would be always called safe.
Now there are ways of being safe without spending any trouble or time
upon it; and those are the ways a trustee will take. For example,' and
here he arose and unhooking a file of current quotations from the wall,
placed it in my lap as I sat beside him. 'now here are Government three's
selling at 108 3-8. They are as safe as the United States; and if I
advised you to buy them, it would cost me no thought, and my character
for safety would run no risk of a blemish. That is the sort of bond that
a trustee recommends. But see what income it gives you. Roughly speaking,
about twenty-eight thousand dollars.'"

"'That would not do at all,' said I, thinking of Ethel and October."

"'Certainly not for you,' returned Mr. Beverly, gaily. If you were a
timorous old maid, now, who would really like all her money in her
stocking in gold pieces, only she's ashamed to say so! But a young fellow
like you with no responsibility, no wife, and butcher's bill--it's quite
another thing!'"

"'Quite,' said I, 'oh, quite!'"

"Richard," interrupted Ethel, "do you have to make yourself out so
simple?"

"My dear, you forget that I said I should invent nothing, but should keep