Montgomery Brewster was trying to gather himself together from
within the fog which made himself and the world unreal.

"I believe I'd like to have you read this extraor--the will, Mr.
Grant," he said, with an effort to hold his nerves in leash.

Mr. Grant cleared his throat and began in his still voice. Once he
looked up to find his listener eager, and again to find him grown
indifferent. He wondered dimly if this were a pose.

In brief, the last will of James T. Sedgwick bequeathed
everything, real and personal, of which he died possessed, to his
only nephew, Montgomery Brewster of New York, son of Robert and
Louise Sedgwick Brewster. Supplementing this all-important clause
there was a set of conditions governing the final disposition of
the estate. The most extraordinary of these conditions was the one
which required the heir to be absolutely penniless upon the
twenty-sixth anniversary of his birth, September 23d.

The instrument went into detail in respect to this supreme
condition. It set forth that Montgomery Brewster was to have no
other worldly possession than the clothes which covered him on the
September day named. He was to begin that day without a penny to
his name, without a single article of jewelry, furniture or
finance that he could call his own or could thereafter reclaim. At
nine o'clock, New York time, on the morning of September 23d, the
executor, under the provisions of the will, was to make over and
transfer to Montgomery Brewster all of the moneys, lands, bonds,
and interests mentioned in the inventory which accompanied the