He raised his head as old Jolyon came in, and muttered: "How are you,
Jolyon? Haven't seen you for an age. You've been to Switzerland, they
tell me. This young Bosinney, he's got himself into a mess. I knew how
it would be!" He held out the papers, regarding his elder brother with
nervous gloom.
Old Jolyon read them in silence, and while he read them James looked at
the floor, biting his fingers the while.
Old Jolyon pitched them down at last, and they fell with a thump
amongst a mass of affidavits in 're Buncombe, deceased,' one of the many
branches of that parent and profitable tree, 'Fryer v. Forsyte.'
"I don't know what Soames is about," he said, "to make a fuss over a few
hundred pounds. I thought he was a man of property."
James' long upper lip twitched angrily; he could not bear his son to be
attacked in such a spot.
"It's not the money," he began, but meeting his brother's glance,
direct, shrewd, judicial, he stopped.
There was a silence.
"I've come in for my Will," said old Jolyon at last, tugging at his
moustache.
James' curiosity was roused at once. Perhaps nothing in this life
was more stimulating to him than a Will; it was the supreme deal with
property, the final inventory of a man's belongings, the last word on
what he was worth.
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