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 Overview

PART I SINGLE-DEGREE-OF-FREEDOM SYSTEMS 1

1 Equations of Motion, Problem Statement, and Solution Methods 3

2 Free Vibration 37

3 Response to Harmonic and Periodic Excitations 63

4 Response to Arbitrary, Step, and Pulse Excitations 119

5 Numerical Evaluation of Dynamic Response 157

6 Earthquake Response of Linear Systems 187

7 Earthquake Response of Inelastic Systems 243

8 Generalized Single-Degree-of-Freedom Systems 293

PART II MULTI-DEGREE-OF-FREEDOM SYSTEMS 329

9 Equations of Motion, Problem Statement, and Solution Methods 331

10 Free Vibration 387

11 Damping in Structures 429

12 Dynamic Analysis and Response of Linear Systems 451

vii
viii Contents

13 Earthquake Analysis of Linear Systems 493

14 Analysis of Nonclassically Damped Linear Systems 601

15 Reduction of Degrees of Freedom 639

16 Numerical Evaluation of Dynamic Response 655

17 Systems with Distributed Mass and Elasticity 677

18 Introduction to the Finite Element Method 707

PART III EARTHQUAKE RESPONSE, DESIGN, AND EVALUATION OF

MULTISTORY BUILDINGS 739

19 Earthquake Response of Linearly Elastic Buildings 741

20 Earthquake Analysis and Response of Inelastic Buildings 757

21 Earthquake Dynamics of Base-Isolated Buildings 833

22 Structural Dynamics in Building Codes 857

23 Structural Dynamics in Building Evaluation Guidelines 883

APPENDIX A FREQUENCY-DOMAIN METHOD OF RESPONSE ANALYSIS 901

APPENDIX B NOTATION 921

APPENDIX C ANSWERS TO SELECTED PROBLEMS 933

Index 949
 Contents

Foreword xix

Preface xxi

Acknowledgments xxix

PART I SINGLE-DEGREE-OF-FREEDOM SYSTEMS 1

1 Equations of Motion, Problem Statement, and Solution Methods 3

1.1 Simple Structures 3
1.2 Single-Degree-of-Freedom System 7
1.3 Force–Displacement Relation 7
1.4 Damping Force 12
1.5 Equation of Motion: External Force 13
1.6 Mass–Spring–Damper System 18
1.7 Equation of Motion: Earthquake Excitation 22
1.8 Problem Statement and Element Forces 25
1.9 Combining Static and Dynamic Responses 26
1.10 Methods of Solution of the Differential Equation 27
1.11 Study of SDF Systems: Organization 31
Appendix 1: Stiffness Coefficients for a Flexural Element 31

2 Free Vibration 37
2.1 Undamped Free Vibration 37

ix
x Contents

2.2 Viscously Damped Free Vibration 45

2.3 Energy in Free Vibration 53
2.4 Coulomb-Damped Free Vibration 54

3 Response to Harmonic and Periodic Excitations 63

Part A: Viscously Damped Systems: Basic Results 63
3.1 Harmonic Vibration of Undamped Systems 63
3.2 Harmonic Vibration with Viscous Damping 70
Part B: Viscously Damped Systems: Applications 82
3.3 Response to Vibration Generator 82
3.4 Natural Frequency and Damping from Harmonic Tests 84
3.5 Force Transmission and Vibration Isolation 87
3.6 Response to Ground Motion and Vibration Isolation 88
3.7 Vibration-Measuring Instruments 92
3.8 Energy Dissipated in Viscous Damping 96
3.9 Equivalent Viscous Damping 99
Part C: Systems with Nonviscous Damping 101
3.10 Harmonic Vibration with Rate-Independent Damping 101
3.11 Harmonic Vibration with Coulomb Friction 104
Part D: Response to Periodic Excitation 108
3.12 Fourier Series Representation 109
3.13 Response to Periodic Force 110
Appendix 3: Four-Way Logarithmic Graph Paper 113

4 Response to Arbitrary, Step, and Pulse Excitations 119

Part A: Response to Arbitrarily Time-Varying Forces 119
4.1 Response to Unit Impulse 120
4.2 Response to Arbitrary Force 121
Part B: Response to Step and Ramp Forces 123
4.3 Step Force 123
4.4 Ramp or Linearly Increasing Force 125
4.5 Step Force with Finite Rise Time 126
Contents xi

Part C: Response to Pulse Excitations 129

4.6 Solution Methods 129
4.7 Rectangular Pulse Force 130
4.8 Half-Cycle Sine Pulse Force 136
4.9 Symmetrical Triangular Pulse Force 141
4.10 Effects of Pulse Shape and Approximate Analysis for Short Pulses 143
4.11 Effects of Viscous Damping 146
4.12 Response to Ground Motion 148

5 Numerical Evaluation of Dynamic Response 157

5.1 Time-Stepping Methods 157
5.2 Methods Based on Interpolation of Excitation 159
5.3 Central Difference Method 162
5.4 Newmark’s Method 165
5.5 Stability and Computational Error 171
5.6 Nonlinear Systems: Central Difference Method 173
5.7 Nonlinear Systems: Newmark’s Method 174

6 Earthquake Response of Linear Systems 187

6.1 Earthquake Excitation 187
6.2 Equation of Motion 193
6.3 Response Quantities 193
6.4 Response History 194
6.5 Response Spectrum Concept 197
6.6 Deformation, Pseudo-Velocity, and
Pseudo-Acceleration Response Spectra 197
6.7 Peak Structural Response from the Response Spectrum 206
6.8 Response Spectrum Characteristics 210
6.9 Elastic Design Spectrum 217
6.10 Comparison of Design and Response Spectra 226
6.11 Distinction Between Design and Response Spectra 228
6.12 Velocity and Acceleration Response Spectra 229
Appendix 6: El Centro, 1940 Ground Motion 233
xii Contents

7 Earthquake Response of Inelastic Systems 243

7.1 Force–Deformation Relations 247
7.2 Normalized Yield Strength, Yield-Strength
Reduction Factor, and Ductility Factor 250
7.3 Equation of Motion and Controlling Parameters 251
7.4 Effects of Yielding 252
7.5 Response Spectrum for Yield Deformation and Yield Strength 258
7.6 Yield Strength and Deformation from the Response Spectrum 262
7.7 Yield Strength–Ductility Relation 263
7.8 Relative Effects of Yielding and Damping 264
7.9 Dissipated Energy 266
7.10 Supplemental Energy Dissipation Devices 268
7.11 Inelastic Design Spectrum 273
7.12 Applications of the Design Spectrum 280
7.13 Gravity Load Effects and Collapse 286

8 Generalized Single-Degree-of-Freedom Systems 293

8.1 Generalized SDF Systems 293
8.2 Rigid-Body Assemblages 295
8.3 Systems with Distributed Mass and Elasticity 297
8.4 Lumped-Mass System: Shear Building 309
8.5 Natural Vibration Frequency by Rayleigh’s Method 315
8.6 Selection of Shape Function 318
Appendix 8: Inertia Forces for Rigid Bodies 323

PART II MULTI-DEGREE-OF-FREEDOM SYSTEMS 329

9 Equations of Motion, Problem Statement, and Solution Methods 331

9.1 Simple System: Two-Story Shear Building 331
9.2 General Approach for Linear Systems 336
9.3 Static Condensation 355
9.4 Planar or Symmetric-Plan Systems: Ground Motion 358
9.5 One-Story Unsymmetric-Plan Buildings 363
9.6 Multistory Unsymmetric-Plan Buildings 368
Contents xiii

9.7 Multiple Support Excitation 372

9.8 Inelastic Systems 376
9.9 Problem Statement 377
9.10 Element Forces 377
9.11 Methods for Solving the Equations of Motion: Overview 378

10 Free Vibration 387

Part A: Natural Vibration Frequencies and Modes 388
10.1 Systems Without Damping 388
10.2 Natural Vibration Frequencies and Modes 390
10.3 Modal and Spectral Matrices 392
10.4 Orthogonality of Modes 392
10.5 Interpretation of Modal Orthogonality 393
10.6 Normalization of Modes 394
10.7 Modal Expansion of Displacements 404
Part B: Free Vibration Response 405
10.8 Solution of Free Vibration Equations: Undamped Systems 405
10.9 Systems with Damping 408
10.10 Solution of Free Vibration Equations: Classically Damped Systems 408
Part C: Computation of Vibration Properties 412
10.11 Solution Methods for the Eigenvalue Problem 412
10.12 Rayleigh’s Quotient 413
10.13 Inverse Vector Iteration Method 414
10.14 Vector Iteration with Shifts: Preferred Procedure 418
10.15 Transformation of kφ = ω mφ to the Standard Form
2
423

11 Damping in Structures 429

Part A: Experimental Data and Recommended Modal Damping Ratios 429
11.1 Vibration Properties of Millikan Library Building 429
11.2 Estimating Modal Damping Ratios 434
Part B: Construction of Damping Matrix 438
11.3 Damping Matrix 438
11.4 Classical Damping Matrix 438
11.5 Nonclassical Damping Matrix 447
xiv Contents

12 Dynamic Analysis and Response of Linear Systems 451

Part A: Two-Degree-of-Freedom Systems 451
12.1 Analysis of Two-DOF Systems Without Damping 451
12.2 Vibration Absorber or Tuned Mass Damper 454
Part B: Modal Analysis 456
12.3 Modal Equations for Undamped Systems 456
12.4 Modal Equations for Damped Systems 458
12.5 Displacement Response 460
12.6 Element Forces 460
12.7 Modal Analysis: Summary 461
Part C: Modal Response Contributions 465
12.8 Modal Expansion of Excitation Vector p(t) = sp(t) 465
12.9 Modal Analysis for p(t) = sp(t) 469
12.10 Modal Contribution Factors 470
12.11 Modal Responses and Required Number of Modes 472
Part D: Special Analysis Procedures 478
12.12 Static Correction Method 478
12.13 Mode Acceleration Superposition Method 481
12.14 Mode Acceleration Superposition Method: Arbitrary Excitation 482

13 Earthquake Analysis of Linear Systems 493

Part A: Response History Analysis 494
13.1 Modal Analysis 494
13.2 Multistory Buildings with Symmetric Plan 500
13.3 Multistory Buildings with Unsymmetric Plan 519
13.4 Torsional Response of Symmetric-Plan Buildings 529
13.5 Response Analysis for Multiple Support Excitation 533
13.6 Structural Idealization and Earthquake Response 539
Part B: Response Spectrum Analysis 539
13.7 Peak Response from Earthquake Response Spectrum 539
13.8 Multistory Buildings with Symmetric Plan 544
Contents xv

13.9 Multistory Buildings with Unsymmetric Plan 556

13.10 A Response-Spectrum-Based Envelope for Simultaneous Responses 563
13.11 A Response-Spectrum-Based Estimation of Principal Stresses 571
13.12 Peak Response to Multicomponent Ground Motion 579

14 Analysis of Nonclassically Damped Linear Systems 601

Part A: Classically Damped Systems: Reformulation 602
14.1 Natural Vibration Frequencies and Modes 602
14.2 Free Vibration 602
14.3 Unit Impulse Response 604
14.4 Earthquake Response 605
Part B: Nonclassically Damped Systems 605
14.5 Natural Vibration Frequencies and Modes 605
14.6 Orthogonality of Modes 607
14.7 Free Vibration 610
14.8 Unit Impulse Response 615
14.9 Earthquake Response 619
14.10 Systems with Real-Valued Eigenvalues 621
14.11 Response Spectrum Analysis 629
14.12 Summary 629
Appendix 14: Derivations 630

15 Reduction of Degrees of Freedom 639

15.1 Kinematic Constraints 639
15.2 Mass Lumping in Selected DOFs 640
15.3 Rayleigh–Ritz Method 641
15.4 Selection of Ritz Vectors 644
15.5 Dynamic Analysis Using Ritz Vectors 650

16 Numerical Evaluation of Dynamic Response 655

16.1 Time-Stepping Methods 655
16.2 Linear Systems with Nonclassical Damping 656
16.3 Nonlinear Systems 663
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xvi Contents

17 Systems with Distributed Mass and Elasticity 677

17.1 Equation of Undamped Motion: Applied Forces 678
17.2 Equation of Undamped Motion: Support Excitation 679
17.3 Natural Vibration Frequencies and Modes 680
17.4 Modal Orthogonality 687
17.5 Modal Analysis of Forced Dynamic Response 688
17.6 Earthquake Response History Analysis 695
17.7 Earthquake Response Spectrum Analysis 699
17.8 Difficulty in Analyzing Practical Systems 702

18 Introduction to the Finite Element Method 707

Part A: Rayleigh–Ritz Method 707
18.1 Formulation Using Conservation of Energy 707
18.2 Formulation Using Virtual Work 711
18.3 Disadvantages of Rayleigh–Ritz Method 712
Part B: Finite Element Method 713
18.4 Finite Element Approximation 713
18.5 Analysis Procedure 714
18.6 Element Degrees of Freedom and Interpolation Functions 716
18.7 Element Stiffness Matrix 718
18.8 Element Mass Matrix 718
18.9 Element Geometric Stiffness Matrix 720
18.10 Element (Applied) Force Vector 720
18.11 Comparison of Finite Element and Exact Solutions 729
18.12 Dynamic Analysis of Structural Continua 730

PART III EARTHQUAKE RESPONSE, DESIGN, AND EVALUATION OF

MULTISTORY BUILDINGS 739

19 Earthquake Response of Linearly Elastic Buildings 741

19.1 Systems Analyzed, Design Spectrum, and Response Quantities 741
19.2 Influence of T1 and ρ on Response 746
19.3 Modal Contribution Factors 747
Contents xvii

19.4 Influence of T1 on Higher-Mode Response 748

19.5 Influence of ρ on Higher-Mode Response 751
19.6 Heightwise Variation of Higher-Mode Response 752
19.7 How Many Modes to Include 754

20 Earthquake Analysis and Response of Inelastic Buildings 757

Part A: Nonlinear Response History Analysis 758
20.1 Equations of Motion: Formulation and Solution 758
20.2 Computing Seismic Demands: Factors to Be Considered 759
20.3 Story Drift Demands 763
20.4 Strength Demands for SDF and MDF Systems 768
Part B: Structural Modeling 770
20.5 Overall System 770
20.6 Structural Elements 771
20.7 Viscous Damping 776
Part C: Ground Motion Selection and Modification 784
20.8 Target Spectrum 784
20.9 Ground Motion Selection and Amplitude Scaling 789
20.10 Ground Motion Selection to Match Target Spectrum Mean and Variance 792
20.11 Influence of GM Selection and Amplitude Scaling on Seismic Demands 794
20.12 Ground Motion Selection and Spectral Matching 800
20.13 Influence of GM Selection and Spectral Matching on Seismic Demands 806
20.14 Amplitude Scaling Versus Spectral Matching of Ground Motions 811
Part D: Approximate Analysis Procedures 812
20.15 Motivation and Basic Concept 812
20.16 Uncoupled Modal Response History Analysis 814
20.17 Modal Pushover Analysis 820
20.18 Evaluation of Modal Pushover Analysis 825
20.19 Simplified Modal Pushover Analysis for Practical Application 830

21 Earthquake Dynamics of Base-Isolated Buildings 833

21.1 Isolation Systems 833
21.2 Base-Isolated One-Story Buildings 836
xviii Contents

21.3 Effectiveness of Base Isolation 842

21.4 Base-Isolated Multistory Buildings 845
21.5 Applications of Base Isolation 851

22 Structural Dynamics in Building Codes 857

Part A: Building Codes and Structural Dynamics 858
22.1 International Building Code (United States), 2018 858
22.2 National Building Code of Canada, 2015 860
22.3 Mexico Federal District Code, 2004 863
22.4 Eurocode 8, 2004 865
22.5 Structural Dynamics in Building Codes 868
Part B: Evaluation of Building Codes 873
22.6 Base Shear 873
22.7 Story Shears and Equivalent Static Forces 877
22.8 Overturning Moments 879
22.9 Concluding Remarks 882

23 Structural Dynamics in Building Evaluation Guidelines 883

23.1 Nonlinear Dynamic Procedure: Current Practice 884
23.2 SDF-System Estimate of Roof Displacement 885
23.3 Estimating Deformation of Inelastic SDF Systems 888
23.4 Nonlinear Static Procedures 893
23.5 Concluding Remarks 899

A Frequency-Domain Method of Response Analysis 901

B Notation 921

C Answers to Selected Problems 933

Index 949
 Foreword

The need for a textbook on earthquake engineering was first pointed out by the eminent
consulting engineer, John R. Freeman (1855–1932). Following the destructive Santa Barbara,
California earthquake of 1925, he became interested in the subject and searched the Boston
Public Library for relevant books. He found that not only was there no textbook on earth-
quake engineering, but the subject itself was not mentioned in any of the books on struc-
tural engineering. Looking back, we can see that in 1925 engineering education was in an
undeveloped state, with computing done by slide rule and curricula that did not prepare the
student for understanding structural dynamics. In fact, no instruments had been developed for
recording strong ground motions, and society appeared to be unconcerned about earthquake
hazards.
In recent years books on earthquake engineering and structural dynamics have been pub-
lished, but the present book by Professor Anil K. Chopra fills a niche that exists between
more elementary books and books for advanced graduate studies. The author is a well-known
expert in earthquake engineering and structural dynamics, and his book will be valuable to
students not only in earthquake-prone regions but also in other parts of the world, for a knowl-
edge of structural dynamics is essential for modern engineering. The book presents material
on vibrations and the dynamics of structures and demonstrates the application to structural
motions caused by earthquake ground shaking. The material in the book is presented very clearly
with numerous worked-out illustrative examples, so that even a student at a university where
such a course is not given should be able to study the book on his or her own time. Read-
ers who are now practicing engineering should have no difficulty in studying the subject by
means of this book. An especially interesting feature of the book is the application of struc-
tural dynamics theory to important issues in the seismic response and design of multistory
buildings. The information presented in this book will be of special value to those engineers
who are engaged in actual seismic design and want to improve their understanding of the
subject.
Although the material in the book leads to earthquake engineering, the information pre-
sented is also relevant to wind-induced vibrations of structures, as well as man-made motions

xix
xx Foreword

such as those produced by drophammers or by heavy vehicular traffic. As a textbook on

vibrations and structural dynamics, this book has no competitors and can be recommended
to the serious student. I believe that this is the book for which John R. Freeman was
searching.

George W. Housner
California Institute of Technology
1994
Exploring the Variety of Random
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“As you please. But it is to me absolutely frightful to see how
unconscious of your own doom, and how indifferent to the great
movements of the day you all are——”
“If they are really great movements, they’ll move without us; you
can’t stop an iceberg or an earthquake with your little finger. But
there’s a good deal of grit in the old order of things still,” says the
duke. “Yes, I’ll have a cup of tea, Wilfrid; I see you’ve got it there.”
Bertram murmurs wearily: “Critchett—tea!”
“Yes, sir,” says a person who is the perfection of all the virtues of
valetdom.
Marlow, wholly undisturbed by the insults which have been heaped
on him, calls out:
“And temperance drinks, Critchett! Lemons divorced from rum,
sterilised milk, barley-water, tartaric acid——”
“Mr. Bertram,” says Cicely Seymour, “how do you reconcile your
conscience to the debasing offices which you employ Critchett to fill
for you?”
“Or to the fact of keeping a Critchett at all?” adds his aunt
Southwold.
“Surely it’s Critchett who keeps him, ——, out of a strait-waistcoat?”
murmurs Marlow.
Critchett hands tea and coffee and chocolate, in a silver service, with
cakes, fruits, and biscuits.
“And all these pretty things, Mr. Bertram?” asks Lady Jane. “Surely
they are the flesh-pots of Egypt, and ought not to be here?”
“They ought not,” replies Bertram, “nor Critchett either.”
“Oh, he is such a delightful servant; so noiseless, so prévenant, and
so devoted to you; you would never find his equal if you sent him
away.”
“No; but for one man to serve another is contrary to all principles of
self-respect on either side.”
“My dear Wilfrid,” cries Lady Southwold, “how I wish you were small
enough to be whipped! What a deal of good it would do you!”
Bertram smiles faintly.
“Flagellation was, I believe, most admirable discipline; but we have
grown too effete for it. Our bodies are as tender as our hearts are
hard.”
“I have always thought,” said Cicely Seymour, in a very soft voice,
“that if everybody could be born with ten thousand a year, nobody
would ever do anything wrong.”
Bertram looks at her approvingly. “You are on the right road, Miss
Seymour. But as we cannot generalise property, we must generalise
poverty. The result will be equally good.”
“Good Lord!” roars his uncle very loudly. “I never heard such a
subversive and immoral doctrine in all my days!”
Bertram glances pityingly at him.
“And yet it is based on precisely the same theory as the one which
you accepted when you passed the Compulsory Clause of the
Parish Councils Bill.”
“The Upper House passed that infamous Bill. I was in the minority
against it,” replies Southwold, very angrily.
“But when everybody’s got sixpence a day,” suggests a young man
with an ingenuous countenance, “and nobody sixpence halfpenny,
surely somebody’ll have a try for the illegal halfpenny, won’t they? It
is human nature.”
“Certainly not,” replies Bertram, very positively. “Nobody will even
wish for an extra halfpenny, because when inequality shall be at an
end envy and discontent will be unknown. Besides, if all the property
of the world was confiscated or realised and equally distributed, the
individual portion would come more nearly to half a crown a head per
diem. On half a crown a head per diem any one can live——”
Lord Southwold sighs. “Oysters are three shillings a dozen,” he
murmurs.
“Of course, if you expect to continue the indulgence of an epicure’s
diseased appetites——” says Bertram, with impatience.
“It’s the oysters that are diseased, not our appetites,” says
Southwold, with a second sigh.
“If,” says Bertram, ignoring his uncle’s nonsense—“if I have made
anything clear in my recent remarks it must surely be that Property
is, in the old copy-book phrase, the root of all evil; the mandrake
growing out of the bodies of the dead, the poisonous gas exhaling
from the carrion of prejudice, of injustice, and of caste.”
“But, my dear Wilfrid,” cries Lady Southwold, with equal impatience,
“yours is rank Communism.”
“You can call it what you please. It is the only condition of things
which would accompany pure civilisation. When, however, I speak of
half a crown a day,” he pursues, “I use a figure of speech! Of course,
in a purely free world there would be no coined or printed money,
there would be only barter.”
“Barter!” echoes Marlow. “I should carry two of my Berkshire pigs,
one under each arm, and exchange them with you for a thousand
copies of your Age to Come.”
“I think barter would be inconvenient, Mr. Bertram,” says Cicely
Seymour, doubtfully. “And what should I barter? I can’t make
anything. I should have to cut off my hair and wait a year till it grew
again.”
Every one laughs, and Bertram even relaxes his gravity.
“I fear, Miss Seymour, that Solon’s self would give you all you wished
for a single smile!”
At that moment a small boy comes into the room, out of breath,
grinning, with several oblong pieces of printed paper in his hand; he
pushes his way unconcerned between the ladies and gentlemen,
and thrusts the papers at Bertram.
“Here, mister, you must tone these here down; manager says as
Fanshawe says as the British Public wouldn’t never stand them pars.
he’s marked at no time; and manager says as I was to tell you Public
is extra nervous now cos o’ that bomb at Tooting.”
Bertram takes the sheets in ill humour, and tears them across.
“Mr. Fanshawe is well aware that I never correct and I never
suppress. I forbid the production of the article in a mutilated state.”
He hands the pieces to the boy. “Bid Mr. Fanshawe return me my
original copy.”
The boy looks frightened.
“Who’ll pay for this here settin’-up, sir, please, if proof ain’t to be
used?”
“Did you say Fanshawe?” says Lord Southwold. “Do you mean the
great Fanshawe of the Torch? Can anything be possibly too strong
for him?”
“Oh, my dear Wilfred! do let us hear what you can have said? It must
be something terrific!” says the old duke, who rather likes subversive
opinions, considering philosophically that he will be in his grave
before they can possibly be put into practice.
“What ’m I to tell the manager about payin’ for the settin’-up of this
here, if type’s to be broke up, sir?” asks the boy, with dogged
persistence.
“Go out of the room, you impudent little rascal!” says Bertram, in
extreme irritation. “Critchett! turn that boy out!”
Marlow gets up and offers the boy a plate of pound cake.
“You are not civil to your sooty Mercury, Bertram. He offers you at
this moment the most opportune illustration of your theories. He
comes on an errand of the intellect, and if a somewhat soiled
messenger, he should nevertheless be treated with the respect due
to a guardian of literary purity and public morality. Sweet imp! refresh
your inner man!”
The boy stuffs his mouth with cake and grins.
“Are these chambers mine or yours, Lord Marlow?” asks Bertram.
“Both mine and yours, or neither yours or mine. There is no such
thing as exclusive possession. You have just told us so.”
“Critchett!” says Bertram, and points with stony gaze to the printer’s
devil, “turn that boy out of the room.”
Critchett, reluctantly touching anything so sooty, takes him by the
collar and drives him before him out of the room.
Marlow picks up the torn proofs. “Who’ll pay for the setting-up? asks
this dear child. Unused proofs are, I suppose, first cousins to spilt
milk and spoilt powder. Mayn’t we read this article? The title is
immensely suggestive—‘Fist-right and Brain-divinity.’ Are you
feloniously sympathetic with the Tooting bomb?”
Bertram takes the torn proofs from him in irritation and throws them
into the open drawer of a cabinet.
“The essay is addressed to persons of intelligence and with
principle,” he says, significantly.
“But it seems that Fanshawe has neither, if he fail to appreciate it?”
“Fanshawe has both; but there are occasional moments in which he
recollects that he has some subscribers in Philistia.”
“Fanshawe knows where his bread is buttered,” chuckles the duke;
“knows where his bread is buttered.”
“If Fanshawe don’t publish it he won’t pay for it, will he?” asks
Marlow, with some want of tact.
“I do not take payment for opinions,” replies Bertram, au bout des
lèvres, and much annoyed at the turn the conversation has taken.
“Most people run opinions in order to get paid for ’em,” says the
duke, with a chuckle.
“Why are you not in Parliament, Mr. Bertram?” asks Cicely Seymour.
“In Parliament!” repeats Bertram, with the faintness of horror;
incredulous that he can hear aright.
“Well, yes; have I said anything so very dreadful?”
“Oh, my dear Cicely!” says Lady Southwold. “Ever since Wilfrid came
of age we have all been at him about that; he might have had a walk
over for Sax-Stoneham, or for Micklethorpe, at any election, but he
would never even let himself be nominated.”
Bertram shrugs his shoulders in ineffable disgust.
“Two Tory boroughs!”
“You could have held any opinions you had chosen. Toryism is a
crépon changeant nowadays; it looks exactly like Radicalism very
often, and only differs from it in being still more outrageous.”
“But perhaps Mr. Bertram’s objection is to all representative
government?” says Cicely Seymour.
Bertram glances gratefully at her. “Precisely so, Miss Seymour.”
“But what could you substitute?”
“Oh, my dear Cicely, read his paper the Age to Come, and pray
spare us such a discussion before dinner,” says Lady Southwold,
with impatience.
“But what would you substitute?” says Cicely Seymour, with
persistent interest in the topic.
“Yes; what would you substitute?” asks the practical politician.
Bertram is out of temper; these acquaintances and relatives worried
him into giving this exposition of his altruistic and socialistic views,
and then they brought a fool with them like Marlow, and have turned
the whole thing into a farce. To Bertram his views were the most
serious things in creation. He does not choose to have them set up
like croquet pegs for imbeciles to bowl at in an idle hour.
“I would abolish all government,” he replies, very decidedly.
“Oh!” Both the politician and Cicely Seymour look a little astonished.
“But how then would you control people?”
“Sane people do not require to be controlled.”
“But I have heard a man of science say that only one person out of
every hundred is really sane?”
“We are bad judges of each other’s sanity. But since you take an
interest in serious subjects,” says Bertram, resting his eyes on her in
approval, “I will, if you will allow me, send you some back numbers of
the Age to Come.”
“Do you mean, Wilfrid, that an obtuse world is so ungrateful as to
leave you any back numbers at all?” asks Southwold.
“They will show you,” continues Bertram, ignoring the interruption,
“what my views and the views of those who think with me are,
concerning the best method of preparing the world to meet those
social changes which are inevitable for the future, those rights of the
individual which are totally ignored and outraged by all present
governments, whether absolute, constitutional, or, in nomenclature,
republican.”
“But why should we prepare to meet them when they’ll be so
deucedly uncomfortable to us if they arrive, and why should we
trouble about helping them onward if they’re so inevitable and
cocksure in their descent on us?” says his uncle.
“I asked you that question just now, and you didn’t answer me. Does
one avoid an avalanche in the Alps by firing a gun to make it fall
sooner than it would do if left alone?”
Critchett is meantime engaged on the expulsion of the printer’s devil
by a back-stair exit, and, profiting by his absence, a little girl, who
has come in at the front entrance, pushes aside the portière of the
door and stands abashed in the middle of the room. She is eight
years old, has a head of red hair, and the shrewd, watching face of
the London child; she carries a penny bunch of violets. Bertram sees
her entrance with extreme displeasure, not unmixed with
embarrassment.
“What do you want here, Bessy?” he inquires, with scant amiability.
Bessy advances and holds out the violets.
“Annie sends these ’ere vi’lets with her love, and she’s got to go to
Ealin’ for a big border o’ mustard an’ cress, and please when’ll you
be round at our place?”
Bertram is extremely annoyed.
“Run away, my good child. You see I am engaged.”
“When’ll you be round at our place?” repeats the little girl. “The pal
as lodges over cousin Joe hev given us tickets for Hoxton Theayter,
and Annie says as how she’d go if you wasn’t comin’ in this evenin’.”
“Run away, child,” repeats Bertram, imperiously. “Critchett!”
Critchett, who has returned, with a demure smile, guides the steps of
the reluctant Bessy from the chamber.
“Why do you let these children in, Critchett?” asks Bertram, as the
valet returns.
“I beg pardon, sir,” the servant says, humbly, as he lays the violets
down on a cloisonné plate. “But you have told me, sir, that you are
always at home for the Brown family.”
“You might surely have more judgment, after all your years of
service!” replies his master. “There are exceptions to every rule.”
Marlow looks up to the ceiling in scandalised protest.
“Service! Service!” he repeats. “Hear him, ye gods! This is the rights
of the individual; the independence of the unit; the perfect equality of
one human being before another!”
Cicely Seymour looks over her shoulder at him and remarks
slightingly: “You are a great tease, Lord Marlow. You make me think I
am in the schoolroom at Alfreton with my brothers home from Eton
for Christmas. Do you really think that chaff is wit?”
“I am not chaffing, Miss Seymour. I am in deadly earnest. This
modest bunch must hold a deal of meaning. Who are the Brown
family? Where is ‘our place’? What is the meeting which must be
postponed because a bloated aristocrat, rolling in ill-gotten wealth,
requires that corrupting luxury known as mustard and cress?”
Everybody laughs, except Cicely Seymour.
“Yes, Wilfrid,” says Lady Southwold; “who are the Brown family?”
“To whom you are always at home,” adds his uncle.
“And Annie who sends button-holes with love,” adds Marlow.
Bertram replies with icy brevity, “A perfectly respectable young
woman.”
“And the respectable one’s address?” asks Marlow. “Where is ‘our
place’? I am seized with an irresistible longing to eat mustard and
cress. I never did eat it, but still——”
Bertram eyes him very disagreeably. “The Browns are persons I
esteem. I should not give their address to persons for whom I have
no esteem.”
“My dear Wilfrid!” cries his aunt. “How altruism does sour the
temper!”
“Temper! I hope I have too much philosophy to allow my temper to
be ruffled by the clumsy horse-jokes of my acquaintances.”
“But why are you always at home to these Browns?”
Bertram hesitates.
“Are they acolytes? studies? pensioners?” asks his aunt.
“Is the respectable one pretty?” murmurs Marlow. “The respectable
ones so uncommonly rarely are!”
He takes the violets off the cloisonné plate.
“A buttonhole to be worn at Hoxton Theatre? It is an emblem of the
immorality of finance: for its commercial value must be at least four
farthings. If my Waterbury offend the eye of eternal justice this penny
bunch must outrage it no less.”
“It is quite natural, I think,” says Cicely Seymour, rather impatiently,
“that Mr. Bertram should have many friends in those classes which
he considers so superior to his own.”
“I do not say any class is superior to any other,” interrupts Bertram. “I
say that all are equal.”
There is now a great buzz of voices everywhere in the rooms; people
are so very glad to have the muzzle off after an hour’s silence; he
cannot doubt, as that murmur and trill of conversation run all round
him, that he has bored them all excruciatingly.
“They have no minds!” he thinks, bitterly. “We sell a bare score of
copies a month of the Age to Come, and the Dustcart, with its
beastly ribaldry and social scandals, sells sixty-five thousand!”
“Do you mean to say, Wilfrid,” asks his aunt, eating a caviare
sandwich, “that anybody would pay taxes if they were not obliged?”
“Do not people, urged by conscience, send arrears, unasked, to the
Chancellor of the Exchequer?”
“Well, they do certainly now and then. But they must be very oddly
constituted people.”
“Is conscience an eccentricity?”
His aunt does not argue, she only shakes her head.
“I can’t believe anybody would pay taxes if they weren’t obliged.”
“But they do. There are these instances in the papers. If moral
feeling in the public were acute and universal, as it ought to be,
every public duty would be fulfilled with promptitude and without
pressure.”
The old duke nods very expressively.
“Your aunt’s right,” he mumbles. “Conscience-money can only come
from cranks!”
“Come and dine with us, Wilfrid,” says his aunt; “we never see you
now. I assure you a good dinner changes the colour of political
opinions in a wonderful degree. I am dreadfully afraid that you have
been living on boiled soles and carrot fritters.”
Bertram smiles slightly. “The carrot fritters; not the soles. I am a
vegetarian.”
“But we are justified in being carnivorous,” says Southwold, very
eagerly. “Individualism justifies us.”
Marlow repeats with emphasis: “We are justified in being
carnivorous. Individualism justifies us.”
“Certainly,” says Bertram, with uncivil sarcasm. “The crocodile has a
right to its appetites, and the cur to its vomit. Solomon said so.”
“Am I the crocodile or the cur?” asks Southwold.
“Do you keep Critchett on carrot fritters?” asks Marlow, “and what
does he have to drink? Hot water? Hot water is, I believe, the
beverege which nowadays accompanies high thinking.”
“And how do you reconcile your conscience and your creeds to
keeping a Critchett at all?” repeats Lady Jane.
Bertram replies with distant chillness and proud humility: “The leaven
of long habit is hard to get rid of; I entirely agree with you that I am in
the wrong. To have a servant at all is an offence to humanity; it is an
impertinence to the brotherhood of our common mortality.”
“Don’t be afraid,” says Southwold, grimly, “our brothers and sisters in
the servants’ halls pay us out for the outrage; they take away our
characters, read our correspondence, and pocket twenty per cent.
on all our bills.”
“Can you blame them? They are the product of a corrupt society. No
one can blame them, whatever they are or do. The dunghill cannot
bring forth the rose. Your service has debased them. The fault of
their debasement lies with you.”
“But Critchett cannot be debased. He must, living in so rarefied a
moral atmosphere, be elevated above all mortal weaknesses.”
Bertram replies stiffly: “I can assure you I have much more respect
for Critchett than for any member of a St. James’ Street club.”
“And yet you give him carrot fritters!” cried Lady Southwold.
Bertram replies with great irritation: “He eats whatever he pleases,
turtle and turbot for aught I know. I should never presume to impose
upon him either my menu or my tenets, my beliefs or my principles.”
“You do wisely if you wish to keep him!” says his aunt. “I hope you
will keep him. He is your only link with civilised life.”
Bertram smiles. “My dear aunt, when I was in the South Pacific I
landed at a small island where civilisation was considered to consist
in a pierced nose and a swollen belly. I do not want to be offensive,
but the estimate which my age takes of its own civilisation is not very
much more sensible.”
“I think it would have been better, Wilfrid, to study psychology under
these savages than to publish the Age to Come! You could not have
injured them, but here——”
“How illiberal you are, dear Lady Southwold,” says Cicely Seymour.
“You want a course of Montaigne.”
“What’s that, Miss Seymour?” asks Marlow. “A rival to Mariani wine?”
“Yes, a French wine; very old and quite unequalled!”
Even Bertram laughs. Marlow is irritated. He does not see what he
has said which is so absurd, or why his friends are laughing.
“Why do you always take that prig’s part?” he mutters, sullenly, aside
to Cicely Seymour.
“I do not take any one’s part,” replies the young lady; “but I detest
injustice and illiberality.”
At this moment the old duke rises with Bertram’s help, is assisted by
him to find his hat and stick, and takes his departure, assuring his
godson that he had been much entertained.
Following the duke’s example every one takes their leave, assuring
their instructor that they have derived much entertainment and
information from his disquisition. Cicely Seymour says simply and
very gently: “Thanks, Mr. Bertram. You have made me your debtor
for many noble thoughts.”
When they have left him Bertram walks up and down his rooms
dissatisfied with himself.
“What a coward!” he thinks, with the moral self-flagellation of an
over-sensitive and over-sincere person. “Why could I not tell them
the truth? Why did I limit myself to saying that she was a perfectly
respectable young woman? If I cannot face the simple enunciation of
the intention, how shall I ever bring myself to the endurance of
publishing the fact when it is accomplished? Am I, after all, the slave
of opinion, like anybody else? Am I afraid of a set of fools who are
capering on their primrose path, seeing nothing of the abyss to which
it leads? If I have not the courage of my views and faiths, wherein
am I superior to their philistinism? I do what I choose; what I see to
be wise and right and just; I desire to give an example which shall
show how utterly I despise the fictitious barriers of caste and custom,
and yet I have not courage enough to say to a few people who are
drinking tea in my rooms, ‘My good folks, I am going to marry a
young woman called Annie Brown.’ Why could I not say it? Why was
I such a miserable poltroon?”
He throws himself into a deep chair and lights a cigarette.
“What would my aunt have done? What would that grinning cad
Marlow have said? What would Cicely Seymour have thought?
Perhaps she would have approved. She has more sympathy, more
insight than the others—and what a charming profile! And those
deep blue eyes under those long thick lashes; they are eyes which
have mind in them as well as youth and smiles and innocence; they
are eyes which will be still beautiful when she is seventy and her hair
is white under a lace mob-cap or a black satin hood. What colour are
Annie’s eyes? They are round and small, of no particular colour, I
think; a reddish grey. Dear good little girl, it was not for her beauty
that I selected her.”
Critchett opens the door at that moment, and breaks in on his
reflections.
“Mr. Fanshawe, sir.”
A gentleman of no definite age, with a shrewd countenance and a
significant smile, crosses the room with outstretched hand.
“My dear Wilfrid, they tell me you are in a wax about the exceptions I
took to your article. I am extremely sorry to touch any single line of
yours, but B.P. must be considered, you know. You are miles too
advanced for this inviolate isle; she is still shuddering at the fright
which Guy Fawkes gave her.”
Bertram replies stiffly: “I have certainly no affinity to Guy Fawkes,
who was a religious person and a strict monarchist. As for the essay,
pray do not trouble yourself; I shall publish it in the Age to Come.”
“Oh, that’s a pity; that will be practically putting it into the waste-
paper basket; excuse me saying so, but you know the circulation of
the Age to Come is at present—is—well—limited.”
“We certainly do not chronicle scandals of the hunting-field, and
devote columns to prophesying the shape of next year’s bonnets, as
the Torch does!”
“That shows you don’t understand your public, or don’t want to
secure one. Extreme opinions, my dear boy, can only be got down
the throats of the world in a weekly journal by being adroitly
sandwiched between the caviare of calumny and the butter of
fashion. People hate to be made to think, my dear boy. The Age to
Come gives ’em nothing but thinking; and damned tough thinking
too. You write with uncommon power, but you are too wholesale, too
subversive; you scare people so awfully that they stop their ears to
your truths. That is not the way to secure a hearing.”
“I am consistent.”
“Oh, Lord! Never be consistent. There’s nothing so unpopular in life.”
“I despise popularity.”
“You despise bread and butter. I believe you lose twenty pound a
month by your Age to Come?”
“To speak more correctly,” replies Bertram, bitterly, “it gets me into
debt to that amount!”
“Heaven and earth! Why don’t you drop it?”
“It is a matter of principle.”
“Principle which will land you in Queer Street. Now, my dear Wilfrid,
no man thinks more things bosh than I do, or takes more pleasure in
saying so, but I combine pleasure with business; I say my say in
such a way that it brings me in eighty per cent.”
Bertram looks at him derisively.
“I have always known that your intellect was only equalled by your
venality!”
Fanshawe laughs good-humouredly.
“That is neat. That is soothing. It is not difficult to understand that
you are not considered a clubbable man! However, as you credit me
with intellect, I don’t mind your denying me morality. But seriously,
my dear friend, you are much too violent, too uncompromising for
success in journalism. Who tries to prove too much fails to prove
anything, and when you bend your bow too violently it snaps and
speeds no arrow. I confess that I (who am as revolutionary as most
people and always disposed to agree with you) do frequently get up
from the perusal of one of your articles with the unwilling conviction
that it is best to let the old order of things alone. Now, that is certainly
not the condition of mind which you wish to produce in your readers.”
Bertram is silent. After a pause he says:
“What do you advocate, then? A cautious trimming?”
“Trimming was the name which the eighteenth-century politician
gave to what we now call opportunism. All sagacious men are not
opportunists, but all sagacious men endeavour to create supporters,
not antagonists. Now, all violent assertion raises opposition, for
human nature is cantankerous and contradictory.”
Critchett enters and hands a card on a salver. “If you please, sir, the
gentleman’s waiting below; says he sent you a letter two days ago;
gentleman’s head of the firm of Folliott and Hake, sir.”
Bertram looks vaguely about the room. “There are a good many
letters unopened. I wonder which it is?”
Fanshawe catches up a pile of letters from a writing-table and sorts
them: “Here’s one with ‘Folliott and Hake’ on the seal; how
unpractical you are, dear boy!”
Bertram takes the letter and looks at it without curiosity. “It is sure to
be something unpleasant. I never heard of Folliott and Hake.”
Fanshawe laughs. “I have; many a time. They have been solicitors in
more than one libel case, of which the Torch was defendant. Come,
open the letter. See what it says.”
Bertram opens and reads it: “Only that they have a matter of great
importance to communicate to me. I really have no idea what it can
be. People think so many things important which are of infinitesimal
insignificance.”
“You will best correct your ignorance by allowing Mr. Folliott to enter
and explain himself.”
“I am so opposed to all lawyers on principle.”
“So am I, as I am opposed to small-pox, or bicycle riders, or yellow
fogs; but they are not to be avoided in this life, and it is neither polite
or politic to keep these highly respectable solicitors waiting like
sweeps. Critchett, beg Mr. Folliott to enter. I will leave you, Bertram.”
“No, no; for goodness’ sake stay. I may want some advice.”
“You not unfrequently do. But you never follow it when given. Pray
be civil.”
A few moments later Mr. Folliott enters; a bland, white-haired, portly
old gentleman, a little ruffled at having been left so long at the foot of
the stairs.
“I beg your pardon, Mr.—Mr.—Folliott,” says Bertram, looking at the
letter. “I had, in fact, not opened this note of yours. It is a bad habit I
have of leaving letters unread.”
“It was Sheridan’s, sir,” says the lawyer, pointedly. “It did not bring
him good fortune.”
He catches sight of Fanshawe, and his amiable countenance
assumes the startled and displeased expression of a cat’s face,
when the cat suddenly perceives a bull terrier.
“I naturally awaited you, Mr. Bertram, or a communication from you,
all the day,” he says, in an affronted tone. “Hearing nothing I thought
it best to come myself. You are perhaps unaware that the Prince of
Viana is dead.”
“I never heard of the individual,” says Bertram. “Who was he?”
“He was your first cousin. You may know him better as the son of Mr.
Horace Errington.”
“Oh! The son of my mother’s brother? We never knew him. There
was a family feud.”
“But you will remember to have heard that his father made great
wealth in the Abruzzi through copper mines, was nationalised, and
was ennobled by Victor Emmanuel. The family feud was chiefly on
account of his connection with commerce and his change of
country.”
“Precisely.”
“I regret to inform you that your cousin is dead, at thirty-three years
of age, killed by a wild boar when hunting in the Pontine marshes; he
has left you, Mr. Bertram, his sole and exclusive heir.”
Bertram stares at him.
“What! you must be joking, Mr. Folliott!”
The old gentleman takes off his gold spectacles and puts them on
again in extreme irritation.
“I am not in the habit of joking, sir, either in business or outside it. We
were solicitors to his father and to himself. We drew up this will five
years ago. You are inheritor of an immense fortune, Mr. Bertram.”
Bertram stands staring at him, then turns to Fanshawe. “Do you
hear? Is it true? Surely, no one could insult me so greatly, even in
jest?”
“I really do not understand,” says the lawyer, bewildered. “What
insult can there be? I am speaking, sir, in most sober earnest.”
“Shall I fan you, Wilfrid? or send for some sal volatile?” says
Fanshawe, derisively. “Don’t be an ass,” he adds in a whisper. “This
sensible old fellow will think it his duty to shut you up in a private
mad-house, if you talk like that. Pull yourself together, and answer
him sensibly.”
Mr. Folliott surveys the speaker as a timid person may look at a lion
riding on a velocipede in a circus-ring.
“If Mr. Bertram would place me in communication with his solicitor
matters would be facilitated,” he murmurs.
“I have no solicitors,” replies Bertram. “If you will pardon what may
seem an offensive opinion, I regard all men of law as poisonous
parasites growing on the rotten trunk of a society which has the axe
of retribution laid at its roots.”
Mr. Folliott is too astonished to be offended: “I fail to follow you, sir,
but I have no doubt you mean something very profound. Your cousin
did not, I imagine, read your articles in the reviews, but I have read
one or two of them. However, notwithstanding your extraordinary
opinions, you are a man of birth and breeding, and must, in a
measure, be a man of the world, sir. You must know that you must
allow me to fulfil my office. This will has to be proved and probate
taken out.”
“Where is the necessity?”
“Be so good as not to play with me. You must accept the inheritance
or decline it. In event of your refusal, of your formal and final refusal,
the whole of this property is to go to the testator’s old college at
Oxford—Magdalen College.”
“Ah! that is a consolation.”
“Why so, sir?”
“Because, although I have no sympathy with the modern movements
at Oxford, and consider that she has fallen away from her original
high mission, yet she is, and always will be, a seat of learning; and
the Humanities will never wholly be banished from her halls.”
“Again, I fail to follow you sir.”
“I mean that such an alternative destination for the property will
enable me to decline it with a clear conscience.”
“Really, sir, your replies are wholly unintelligible.”
Bertram turns helplessly to Fanshawe. “Explain to this gentleman my
views regarding property.”
“I am aware of some of them, sir,” replies the solicitor, sententiously.
“You read the Torch, Mr. Folliott, don’t you?” says the proprietor of
the Torch.
“When my professional duties compel me, sir.”
“But the Torch is milk for lambs, Mr. Folliott, beside the Age to
Come.”
The solicitor bows with an expression which indicates that he would
prefer to remain unacquainted with the Age to Come.
“But pardon me,” continues Fanshawe, “is my friend here really so
immensely in luck’s way?”
“He inherits under the Prince of Viana’s will all properties, both
English and Italian,” replies the lawyer, with the cat’s expression
more accentuated on his countenance.
“And they are very large?”
“Very large. My late client was an only son, and though generous,
never spendthrift.”
Fanshawe touches Bertram’s arm. “Wake up, Wilfrid. Do you hear?
Can’t you speak?”
Bertram says wearily, “What am I to say? It is an unspeakably awful
thing. I really cannot bring myself to believe in it.”
“If you will allow me,” says the solicitor, “to make you acquainted with
some details of the——”
“To what end? Do the items of the contents of the pack interest the
pack-horse to whose aching back the burden is offered?”
“Again I fail to follow you.”
“To follow him, Mr. Folliott,” says Fanshawe, “requires a long course
of patient perusal of the Age to Come.”
“Quite so, quite so,” answers the solicitor, coldly, in a tone which
intimates that he will not have that patience. “I have certainly never
seen the announcement of an inheritance received in such a
manner.”
“But why,” says Bertram—“why did this relative, whom I never knew,
leave his property to me?”
“I cannot tell, sir. It was certainly not by the advice of our firm.”
“Are there any conditions attached to this extraordinary bequest?”
“None, sir. You can realise at once and invest everything in dynamite
and pyretic acid,” replies the solicitor, with a rasping scorn showing
through the velvet of his admirable manners.
“Oh, my dear sir! Can you fall into the vulgar error of confounding
collectivism and altruism with anarchy? They are as far apart as the
Poles. One is love; the other hatred.”
“I confess, sir, that such love nauseates me. I prefer of the two the
hatred. But I am an old-fashioned person, and I know little of
literature later than the ’Sixties.”
“A most debased period in every form of production.”
“It may be so. Macaulay was alive in it and Tennyson. But I did not
come here to discuss the characteristics of generations. I came to
inform you of an event which I immaturely concluded would appear
to you both important and agreeable.”
“You did not know me, my dear sir.”
“I did not, sir.”
With a little cough and a little stately bow the old gentleman prepares
to leave, with the cat’s glance at the bull terrier still more hostile and
more scared.
“You will be so good, sir, as to call on us to-morrow morning, or to
send some representative authorised by you. You must be aware
that the law requires you either to accept the bequest or decline it.”
“I am criminal if I accept: I may be equally criminal if I reject it.”