instruction. There is another?'

'There is just one other, and no more. Make me as compact a little will
as can be reconciled with tightness, leaving the whole of the property
to "my beloved wife, Henerietty Boffin, sole executrix". Make it as
short as you can, using those words; but make it tight.'

At some loss to fathom Mr Boffin's notions of a tight will, Lightwood
felt his way.

'I beg your pardon, but professional profundity must be exact. When you
say tight--'

'I mean tight,' Mr Boffin explained.

'Exactly so. And nothing can be more laudable. But is the tightness to
bind Mrs Boffin to any and what conditions?'

'Bind Mrs Boffin?' interposed her husband. 'No! What are you thinking
of! What I want is, to make it all hers so tight as that her hold of it
can't be loosed.'

'Hers freely, to do what she likes with? Hers absolutely?'

'Absolutely?' repeated Mr Boffin, with a short sturdy laugh. 'Hah! I
should think so! It would be handsome in me to begin to bind Mrs Boffin
at this time of day!'

So that instruction, too, was taken by Mr Lightwood; and Mr Lightwood,
having taken it, was in the act of showing Mr Boffin out, when Mr Eugene