The Vandemark Mummy Read Free Page A

werebringing it all up again, since the decision had been made weeks ago, and there was nothing more to be argued about.
    â€œYou and Mom don’t have exactly the same set of values, you know,” Althea said.
    â€œI know,” Mr. Hall agreed.
    â€œIf you ask me,” Phineas said, “which I notice nobody is, it’s pretty dumb to break up over a BMW. It wasn’t even our BMW. What does it matter to us if the Tunneys give their kid a BMW for a sixteenth-birthday present?”
    â€œWe haven’t broken up,” his father said.
    It turned out, that was what Phineas really wanted to hear. Between the fancy apartment—fireplace in the living room, tennis courts and swimming pool—and the congressman, and not having all the irritation of taking care of them—all the nagging and all the cooking—he wasn’t too sure what his mother might do next.
    â€œWe’re not even legally separated,” his father said.
    â€œOne of the letters for you looks like a lawyer,” Althea said then.
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œLawyer-type names, with P.A. after it. Mailed in Portland,” she warned her father.
    He picked the envelope out. It was large, creamy colored, and didn’t have the yellow sticker the post office in Westchester put on to forward mail.
    â€œMaine,” Mr. Hall said, “Portland, Maine, see? But why would a lawyer here be writing to me?”
    â€œLooking for business?” Phineas suggested. “Lawyers are allowed to advertise you know.”
    His father had opened the letter, and was readingfour short, typewritten lines, holding in his other hand another envelope, even creamier and more expensive-looking than the first. He opened that one too, and read it without even looking up at his children, who stood watching. When he had finished the second page, he was puzzled but amused.
    â€œThe effect preceded the cause,” he announced. He didn’t expect them to understand. “All is explained,” he added, which explained nothing to Phineas. He spread the letter on the table for Phineas and Althea to read.
    â€œTo Whom It May Concern,” the letter began.
    It is my eighty-eighth birthday. That need not concern you, just as who you are does not concern me. That I am eighty-eight does concern me. It is time to begin thinking of my demise. When you read this, that event will have occurred.
    I have bequeathed to Vandemark College my Egyptian Collection. Do not get your hopes up, young man, and I hope you are scholar enough to restrain the board of governors in what will inevitably be their shortsighted enthusiasm. The Egyptian Collection contains no treasures. It is, however, of historical interest as well as—I flatter my youthful judgment—having some use to scholarship.
    You come into the business because I have decided to establish a curatorial chair for the Collection. I have further decided to award that position to the newest appointee in the Department of Classical Languages. This choice may well be idealistic of me, or willful, but I have my reasons. Experience tells me that a scholar may be more clear-sighted in a field other than his own. It tells me , further, that a Classical linguist will possess qualities the Collection will benefit from—a lack of what the world calls ambition (by which word the world usually speaks of greed), and a patient meticulousness of mind. I can only hope that you have these characteristics.
    The bequest includes a gift of money sufficient to build a small wing on to the present library. On no account is this building endowment, or the Egyptian Collection, to become an adjunct of McPhail Hall.
    The curatorial salary is presently set at the sum of ten thousand dollars per annum, to be adjusted annually for cost of living. You will more than earn it, in the first years. After that, it will perhaps smack of the sinecure. I don’t know what your moral structure is, young man,