Diana Tempest by Mary Cholmondeley, Fiction, Classics, Literary

"Curse him!" said Colonel Tempest to Mr. Swayne in a hoarse whisper, his eyes bloodshot. "That boy should not get in my light!"

The schoolboy John had been left the entire Tempest estate by Colonel Tempest's brother Jack -- who had written that will out of pure, bitter spite.

The philosophical Mr. Swayne calmly regarded Tempest. "What's the harm of a small bet about it? One thousand to ten. And what's ten thousand pounds for you to risk, if you come into such a property?" Mr. Swayne snapped his fingers. "And no trouble to nobody. Nothing for you to do but pay up quietly when the time comes. It don't concern you who takes up the other bets. You know nothing at all about it. You lay your money, and, look here, Colonel, you mark my words, some way or somehow, some time or other, that boy will disappear."

Novelist Mary Cholmondeley (1859-1925), author Moth and Rust and Red Pottage, wrote one of her most biting satires of men at their most unreasonable -- and dangerous, in Diana Tempest.