Page:Brewster's millions (IA brewstersmillion00greaiala).pdf/41

 Mr. Grant cleared his throat and began in his still voice. Once he looked up to find his listener eager, and again to find him grown indifferent. He wondered dimly if this were a pose.

In brief, the last will of James T. Sedgwick bequeathed everything, real and personal, of which he died possessed, to his only nephew, Montgomery Brewster of New York, son of Robert and Louise Sedgwick Brewster. Supplementing this all-important clause there was a set of conditions governing the final disposition of the estate. The most extraordinary of these conditions was the one which required the heir to be absolutely penniless upon the twenty-sixth anniversary of his birth, September 23d.

The instrument went into detail in respect to this supreme condition. It set forth that Montgomery Brewster was to have no other worldly possession than the clothes which covered him on the September day named. He was to begin that day without a penny to his name, without a single article of jewelry, furniture or finance that he could call his own or could thereafter reclaim. At nine o'clock, New York time, on the morning of September 23d, the executor, under the provisions of the will,