had taken a fancy to me,—and told me to draw up his will on the lines I have indicated to you. When it came to inserting the addresses of yourself and your sister, he frankly said that he didn't know where you were. I suggested making inquiries—he wouldn't hear of them. What he said in effect was this: 'I'm going to die, and I don't want to be bothered by anything or anybody. I've done with my money, and Sam's youngsters shall have it. I don't know where they are—find them when I'm gone.' I objected that they might be dead—he wouldn't hear a word, and observed that all the Goulbourns were long-lived. So the will was duly made, attested, and executed, and soon afterwards he died."
"How was it we never heard of his death?" asked Goulburn.
"It would have been a wonder if you had, sir," replied the solicitor, with a dry laugh. "I told you he was eccentric—well, you can judge of his eccentricity from a few little things. He paid his doctor in cash as soon as he could get him to tell him definitely how long he would live. He paid my firm—Conybeare, Hamilton, & Calfin, of Bedford Row—in just the same way at the same time, and exacted from us a solemn promise that we would faithfully carry out his last wishes. He desired to be buried in the plainest possible fashion, to be followed to the grave by no one but myself, and to have the plainest of tombstones set up over his grave the day after his burial with nothing but his initials and the date of his death carved upon it.
