"Which'll be the easier to prove?" he asked, without looking up.
"It would be more charitable to prove he had been out of his mind," I
replied, "and perhaps easier."
"Charity be damned," said this remarkable man. "I'm after the property."
So I decided on insanity. I hunted up and subpoenaed white-haired
witnesses for miles around. Many of them shook their heads when they
spoke of Mr. Cooke's great-uncle, and some knew more of his private
transactions than I could have wished, and I trembled lest my own
witnesses should be turned against me. I learned more of Mr. Cooke's
great-uncle than I knew of Mr. Cooke himself, and to the credit of my
client be it said that none of his relative's traits were apparent in
him, with the possible exception of insanity; and that defect, if it
existed in the grand-nephew, took in him a milder and less criminal turn.
The old rascal, indeed, had so cleverly worded his deed of sale as to
obtain payment without transfer. It was a trifle easier to avoid being
specific in that country in his day than it is now, and the document was,
in my opinion, sufficiently vague to admit of a double meaning. The
original sale had been made to a man, now dead, whom the railroad had
bought out. The Copper Rise property was mentioned among the other lands
in the will in favor of Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke, and the latter had
gone ahead improving them and increasing their output in spite of the
repeated threats of the railroad to bring suit.
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