But he fancied that his only chance with the old man lay in an assumption of prosperity; so he carried matters with a high hand throughout the business, and swaggered in the little dusky parlour behind the shop just as he had swaggered on New-York Broadway or at Delmonico's in the heyday of his commercial success.
He called at Mr.Medler's office the day after Jacob Nowell's will had been executed, having had no hint of the fact from his father.

The solicitor told him what had been done, and how the most strenuous efforts on his part had only resulted in the insertion of Percival's name after that of his daughter.
Whatever indignation Mr.Nowell may have felt at the fact that his daughter had been preferred before him, he contrived to keep hidden in his own mind.

The lawyer was surprised at the quiet gravity with which he received the intelligence.

He listened to Mr.Medler's statement of the case with the calmest air of deliberation, seemed indeed to be thinking so deeply that it was as if his thoughts had wandered away from the subject in hand to some theme which allowed of more profound speculation.
"And if she should die childless, I should get all the free-hold property ?" he said at last, waking up suddenly from that state of abstraction, and turning his thoughtful face upon the lawyer.
"Yes; all the real estate would be yours." "Have you any notion what the property is worth ?" "Not an exact notion.

Your father gave me a list of investments.
Altogether, I should fancy, the income will be something handsome--between two and three thousand a year, perhaps.