"You keep your property in your own hands as long as you live.

If you ever see symptoms in me of wanting to play the Jotham, I hope that you will put me outside the house door and shut it on me!" The old Squire laughed and patted my shoulder affectionately.
"Well, I'm eighty-three now, you know," he said slowly.

"It can hardly be such a very great while." I shook my head by way of protest, for the thought was an exceedingly unpleasant one.
However, the old gentleman only laughed again.
"No, it can hardly be such a very great while," he repeated.
But he lived to be ninety-eight, and I can truly say that those last years with him at the old farm, going about or driving round together, were the happiest of my life..