He was closing the small iron safe again very quietly when all at once, before he could think of what he was doing, he ran his hand into the mouth of the canvas sack, furtively, slyly, snatched one of the heavy round coins, and thrust it into his vest pocket, looking all about him, listening intently, saying to himself with a nervous laugh, "Well, isn't it mine anyway ?" In spite of himself he could not help feeling a joy in the possession of this money as if of some treasure-trove dug up on an abandoned shore.

He even began to plan vaguely how he should spend it.
However, he could not bring himself to open any of the papers, but sent them instead to a lawyer, whom he knew his father had often consulted.

A few days later he received a typewritten letter asking him to call at his earliest convenience.
It was at his residence and not at his office that Vandover saw the lawyer, as the latter was not well at the time and kept to his bed.
However, he was not so sick but that his doctor allowed him to transact at least some of his business.

Vandover found him in his room, a huge apartment, one side entirely taken up by book-shelves filled with works of fiction.

The walls were covered with rough stone-blue paper, forming an admirable background to small plaster casts of Assyrian _bas-reliefs_ and large photogravures of Renaissance portraits.
Underneath an enormous baize-covered table in the centre of the room were green cloth bags filled apparently with books, padlocked tin chests, and green pasteboard deed-boxes.