lawyers, thereby securing its protection by the United States
Government), Mr. Hooper's last will and testament as uttered on the
16th day of October, 1885, was necessarily brief and succinct. It
merely said:

"I hereby revoke any former will I may have made prior to this date,
and now bequeath to my beloved nephew, Thomas Singleton Bingle, my
entire fortune, which at this time appears to be not my face but my
figure. I therefore bequeath to him my physical person, and vest in
him the right to chuck it into the river, or to dispose of it for
medical purposes, as he may see fit, provided however that I shall
first have been declared sufficiently dead by competent judges. I also
bequeath to him any property, great or small, that may be in my
possession at the time of my demise, even though it be no more than
the collar-button with which he so kindly supplied me this morning,
and which I shall always retain as a mark of his devotion, knowing
well what it means for a man to deprive himself of a cherished
belonging."

This was written in a very fine, cramped hand, and there was ample
room at the bottom for his own signature and those of the witnesses,
although it must be said that the elegant symmetry of the document was
destroyed by the bulging scrawl of the bailiff, whose name was Abraham
Kosziemanowski and who had to turn the final two syllables down at a
sharp angle in order to get the whole of his signature on the card.

Bradlee, Sigsbee & Oppenheim, on the receipt of this jocose
instrument, immediately communicated with their once magnificent
client, who laconically instructed them to put it away in a very safe
place as it might come in handy some time. To their own and to his