Aron looked quickly at Cal and slowly took his deer’s-leg whistle out of his pocket.

Cal said, “I don’t want it.”

Aron said, “It’s yours now.”

“Well, I don’t want it. I won’t have it.”

Aron laid the bone whistle on the table. “It’ll be here for you,” he said.

Adam broke in, “Say, what is this argument? I said you boys should go to bed.”

Cal put on his “little boy” face. “Why?” he asked. “It’s too early to go to bed.”

Adam said, “That wasn’t quite the truth I told you. I want to talk privately to Lee. And it’s getting dark so you can’t go outside, so I want you boys to go to bed—at least to your room. Do you understand?”

Both boys said, “Yes, sir,” and they followed Lee down the hall to their bedroom at the back of the house. In their nightgowns they returned to say good night to their father.

Lee came back to the living room and closed the door to the hall. He picked up the deer’s-leg whistle and inspected it and laid it down. “I wonder what went on there,” he said.

“How do you mean, Lee?”

“Well, some bet was made before supper, and just after supper Aron lost the bet and paid off. What were we talking about?”

“All I can remember is telling them to go to bed.”

“Well, maybe it will come out later,” said Lee.

“Seems to me you put too much stock in the affairs of children. It probably didn’t mean anything.”

“Yes, it meant something.” Then he said, “Mr. Trask, do you think the thoughts of people suddenly become important at a given age? Do you have sharper feelings or clearer thoughts now than when you were ten? Do you see as well, hear as well, taste as vitally?”

“Maybe you’re right,” said Adam.

“It’s one of the great fallacies, it seems to me,” said Lee, “that time gives much of anything but years and sadness to a man.”

“And memory.”

“Yes, memory. Without that, time would be unarmed against us. What did you want to talk to me about?”

Adam took the letter from his pocket and put it on the table. “I want you to read this, to read it carefully, and then—I want to talk about it.” Lee took out his half-glasses and put them on. He opened the letter under the lamp and read it.

Adam asked, “Well?”

“Is there an opening here for a lawyer?”

“How do you mean? Oh, I see. Are you making a joke?”

“No, said Lee, “I was not making a joke. In my obscure but courteous Oriental manner I was indicating to you that I would prefer to know your opinion before I offered mine.”

“Are you speaking sharply to me?”

“Yes, I am,” said Lee. “I’ll lay aside my Oriental manner. I’m getting old and cantankerous. I am growing impatient. Haven’t you heard of all Chinese servants that when they get old they remain loyal but they turn mean?”

“I don’t want to hurt your feelings.”

“They aren’t hurt. You want to talk about this letter. Then talk, and I will know from your talk whether I can offer an honest opinion or whether it is better to reassure you in your own.”

“I don’t understand it,” said Adam helplessly.

“Well, you knew your brother. If you don’t understand it, how can I, who never saw him?”

Adam got up and opened the hall door and did not see the shadow that slipped behind it. He went to his room and returned and put a faded brown daguerreotype on the table in front of Lee. “That is my brother Charles,” he said, and he went back to the hall door and closed it.

Lee studied the shiny metal under the lamp, shifting the picture this way and that to overcome the highlights. “It’s a long time ago,” Adam said. “Before I went into the army.”

Lee leaned close to the picture. “It’s hard to make out. But from his expression I wouldn’t say your brother had much humor.”

“He hadn’t any,” said Adam. “He never laughed.”

“Well, that wasn’t exactly what I meant. When I read the terms of your brother’s will it struck me that he might have been a man with a particularly brutal sense of play. Did he like you?”

“I don’t know,” said Adam. “Sometimes I thought he loved me. He tried to kill me once.”

Lee said, “Yes, that’s in his face—both the love and the murder. And the two made a miser of him, and a miser is a frightened man hiding in a fortress of money. Did he know your wife?”

“Yes.”

“Did he love her?”

“He hated her.”

Lee sighed. “It doesn’t really matter. That’s not your problem, is it?”

“No. It isn’t.”

“Would you like to bring the problem out and look at it?”

“That’s what I want.”

“Go ahead then.”

“I can’t seem to get my mind to work clearly.”

“Would you like me to lay out the cards for you? The uninvolved can sometimes do that.”

“That’s what I want.”

“Very well then.” Suddenly Lee grunted and a look of astonishment came over his face. He held his round chin in his thin small hand. “Holy horns!” he said. “I didn’t think of that.”