Claudius carefully reread the papers without betraying the smallest emotion.  He then put them back in the envelope, and opening a small iron cash-box, which stood on a shelf of the book-case, locked up will, letter, power of attorney, and all.  Then he shook his long limbs, with a sigh, and having rolled a thick cigarette, lighted it, and sat down in his chair to think.  The shadows were deepening, and the smoke of his tobacco showed white against the gloom in the room.  The news he had just received would have driven some men crazy, and certainly most people would experience some kind of vivid sensation at finding themselves suddenly endowed with immense wealth from a quarter where they did not even suspect it existed.  Moreover, old Lindstrand’s will was perfectly unequivocal, and contained none of those ill-natured restrictions about marrying or not marrying, or assuming the testator’s name, or anything which could put the legatee to the slightest inconvenience.  But Claudius experienced no sensation of pleasure at finding himself sole master of a million and a half.

It was not that he was foolish enough to despise money, or even to pretend to, as some people do.  He would have felt keenly the loss of his own little store, and would have hated to work for money instead of working for work’s sake.  But he had enough, and had always had enough, for his small wants.  He loved beautiful things intensely, but he had no desire to possess them; it was enough that he might see them, and carry away the remembrance.  He loved books, but he cared not a jot for rare editions, so long as there were cheap ones published in Leipzic.  That old copy of Sextus Empiricus, on the desk there, he had bought because he could not get an ordinary edition; and now that he had read it he did not care to keep it.  Of course it contained a great deal that was good, but he had extracted the best of it, and meant to sell the volume to the first bidder—­not that he wanted the money, but because it was in the way; if he allowed things to accumulate, there would be no turning round in his little den.  So he leaned back in his straight-backed chair and wondered what in the world he should do with “all that money.”  He might travel.  Yes, but he preferred to travel with a view of seeing things, rather than of reaching places.  He would rather walk most of the way.  The only way in which he could possibly live up to such an income must be by changing his entire mode of life—­a house, somewhere in a great city, horses, servants, and even a wife—­Claudius laughed for the first time in many months, a deep Homeric laugh—­they would all help him to get rid of his money.  But then, a life like that—­pshaw! impossible.  He was sick of it before beginning, then what would he feel after a month of it?