El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1911-01-25
In Accordance With viii
BY C. Or1nstOn.

tkT ooK HERE" said Tommy Bal
dock, what does all this
mean? You tell me that my
great uncle, Jim Baldock, has left me
all his property, but under q monu-
mentally idiotic condition. Is that alb
solutely correct? I mean, is there no
possible way of evading the condi-
tion?"
I'm afraid not" said the lawyer
smiling. Your great uncle was per-
fectly sane and the will was properly
executed. You had better glance
through this copy Of it. But, really,
the condition is not very arduous."
He handed Baldock some typed
papers as he spoke, and the latter sat
down to read them. First there came
schedule of the testator's property, and
figuring it out roughly as he read,
Baldock made out to be more than
100. 900 pounds personal estate; besides
a house and a certain amount of land
Is or 20 miles from London, a very
pleasant inheritance indeed. Then came
the conditions Of bequeatheL
"All the above mentioned property.
and whatever else 1 may die possessed
Of. give and bequeath to my great
nephew, Thomas Baldock on condition
that if not already married, he enters
the married state within three months
of my intentions being communicated
to him. I make this condition, because
I, myself remained unmarried through
mistaken idea, and wish now, too late
that I had not done so and do not de-
sire that he make the same error. But
I give him the sum of 1000 pounds cash
free of condition and absolutely that
he may be able to carry out this condi-
ton without financial embarrassment.
In the event of his not fulfilling the
condition the whole of the property,
with the exception of an annuity Of
100 pounds, I give and bequest to
Ada, only daughter and child of Mary
Samson (formerly Carter), who
though engaged TO me, married John
Samson, for which reason 1 remained
bachelor all my life"
Tommy as a lady's man was a failure,
and knew it. AS a boy, he had never
girl flirtations. caring little for girls
society, and as he grew older this in
difference had developed into an over
powering shyness and an absolute dis
taste for the society Of the other sex.
And now he had to get married in less
! than three months or lose his Inherit
ance. As the reality of the whole at
fair took shape in his mind, he ana
thematized his deceased relatives in
tentions, and he half made up his mind
to abandon the whole thing and con-
tent himself with what he had and the
additional hundred a year. But the
bait was too strong to be refused Even
as he formulated the idea, he remem-
bered hundred and one things he had
always wanted to do, things that cost
money and he forced himself to face
the prospect Then the question arose:
who on earth was he to marry?'
asPx 1--we Nav Reaton' he ex-
claimed.
Shy though he might be. Tom was
not given to vacilllation once he had
made up his mind. He suddenly re-
membered that he had received an IN
vitation to big tennis party, the first
Of the season, for the next Saturday
from the Henslows, who, as he knew,
were great friends of Mrs. Beaton and
May. Ordinarily he would have shirked
it. but now he decided to go Al
though she did not play tennis, she was
certain to be there, and It would be
an excellent opportunity for beginning
his operations.
He went, and was thoroughly miser-
able He played a few rather weak
mixed sets of tennis, and in the in
tervals tried to get speech with his
prospective bride. But Throughout the
afternoon, whenever he approached
her, he found her fully occupied with a
sunburnt young man, an officer on
leave from India, whom he knew
slightly. But at last he found MIS-.
Beator1 alone, and as the nearest ap-
proach TO May he sat down beside her
and remarked that her daughter was
not a tennis player, fact of which he
and everyone else in the place, was per-
fectly aware.
But he got on rather better with her.
Mrs. Beaton liked him in spite Of his
| shyness. Moreover, being a widow and
still young, she was able to manage
him better than a girl could have done,
and having discovered a subject Of
mutual interest, she made him talk as
he had not done to woman for many
years He forgot all his self-conscious-
ness and was for once in his life
thoroughly at his ease when May her
self joined them little later.
After few minutes Mrs. Beaton was
called away and May was left alone
with him at last.
The very momentousness of the issue
at stake seemed to freeze all his en-
ergies, his shyness returned IN full
force, and though he mathematical
himself again and again for a blunder-
ing idiot, when the young officer came
UP with message from her mother,
ne was painfully conscious that his
| share of the conversation had been
limited to incoherent disjointed SEN
tencs uttered, or rather blurtd out
at random.
Looking upon the matter from
strictly business point Of view, and
am afraid that he did so. he could have
looked elsewhere with ease, for the
supply of unmarried and manageable
girls in a big residential suburb is
practically unlimited, but he was con-
WINGED that she alone could save his
fortune for him, and he returned
doggedly to his original venture and
spent his spare time anathematizing
| himself for having slipped into his
nisogynistic habit of mind and his
Uncle Jim for having laid this burden
on him. The one bright spot in that
miserable summer was afforded by
Mays mother It had occurred to him
that when unable to monopolize the
daughter, it was good policy to court
the mother, and insensibly he drifted
| into a real friendship with her.
The time slipped by till one day he
realized that he had but three weeks
left, and that he was practically no
nearer his end. He felt desperate.
| Something must be done, he told him