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"You will scarcely believe it," said Graham slowly,
"I'm so ignorant--I've been so preoccupied in my
own little affairs, my circumstances have been so odd--I
know nothing of this Sleeper's history. Who
was he?"
"Eh!" said the old man. "I know. I know. He
was a poor nobody, and set on a playful woman, poor
soul! And he fell into a trance. There's the old
things they had, those brown things--silver photographs--still
showing him as he lay, a gross and a
half years ago--a gross and a half of years."
"Set on a playful woman, poor soul," said Graham
softly to himself, and then aloud, "Yes--well! go on."
"You must know he had a cousin named Warming
a solitary man without children, who made a big fortune
speculating in roads--the first Eadhamite roads.
But surely you've heard? No? Why? He bought
all the patent rights and made a big company. In
those days there were grosses of grosses of separate
businesses and business companies. Grosses of
grosses! His roads killed the railroads--the old
things--in two dozen years; he bought up and Eadhaillited'
the tracks. And because he didn't want to
break up his great property or let in shareholders, he
left it all to the Sleeper, and put it under a Board of
Trustees that he had picked and trained. He knew
then the Sleeper wouldn't wake, that he would go on
sleeping, sleeping till he died. He knew that quite
well! And plump! a man in the United States, who
had lost two sons in a boat accident, followed that up
with another great bequest. His trustees found themselves
with a dozen myriads of lions'-worth or more
of property at the very beginning."
"What was his name?"
"Graham."
"No, I mean--that American's."
"Isbister."
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