humorous name--a name he could roll lovingly round his tongue--a
name expressing a sort of humorous contempt--Wurzel-Flummery! I
can see now the happy ruminating smile which carne so often on my
Uncle Antony's face in those latter months. He was thinking of his
two Wurzel-Flummerys. I remember him saying once--it was at the
Zoo--what a pity it was he hadn't enough to divide among the whole
Cabinet. A whole bunch of Wurzel-Flummerys; it would have been
rather jolly.

CRAWSHAW. You force me to say, sir, that if _that_ was the way you
and your uncle used to talk together at his death can only be
described as a merciful intervention of Providence.

CLIFTON. Oh, but I think he must be enjoying all this somewhere,
you know. I hope he is. He would have loved this morning. It was
his one regret that from the necessities of the case he could not
live to enjoy his own joke; but he had hopes that echoes of it
would reach him wherever he might be. It was with some such idea, I
fancy, that toward the end he became interested in spiritualism.

CRAWSHAW (rising solemnly). Mr. Clifton, I have no interest in the
present whereabouts of your uncle, nor in what means he has of
overhearing a private conversation between you and myself. But if,
as you irreverently suggest, he is listening to us, I should like
him to hear this. That, in my opinion, you are not a qualified
solicitor at all, that you never had an uncle, and that the whole
story of the will and the ridiculous condition attached to it is
just the tomfool joke of a man who, by his own admission, wastes
most of his time writing unsuccessful farces. And I propose--