CHAPTER II

SHADES OF ALADDIN


Montgomery Brewster no longer had "prospects." People could not
now point him out with the remark that some day he would come into
a million or two. He had "realized," as Oliver Harrison would have
put it. Two days after his grandfather's funeral a final will and
testament was read, and, as was expected, the old banker atoned
for the hardships Robert Brewster and his wife had endured by
bequeathing one million dollars to their son Montgomery. It was
his without a restriction, without an admonition, without an
incumbrance. There was not a suggestion as to how it should be
handled by the heir. The business training the old man had given
him was synonymous with conditions not expressed in the will. The
dead man believed that he had drilled into the youth an
unmistakable conception of what was expected of him in life; if he
failed in these expectations the misfortune would be his alone to
bear; a road had been carved out for him and behind him stretched
a long line of guide-posts whose laconic instructions might be
ignored but never forgotten. Edwin Peter Brewster evidently made
his will with the sensible conviction that it was necessary for
him to die before anybody else could possess his money, and that,
once dead, it would be folly for him to worry over the way in
which beneficiaries might choose to manage their own affairs.

The house in Fifth Avenue went to a sister, together with a
million or two, and the residue of the estate found kindly
disposed relatives who were willing to keep it from going to the