A wealthy man left his estate to his daughter, intending that his only brother should be her guardian. The document was awkwardly constructed, one of the sections reading: “My daughter must live under the same roof with her uncle until she is of age; and be married under that same roof before her twenty-first birthday or else her fortune goes to the aforesaid uncle.” What the man really meant was that his daughter could not wed without her uncle’s consent before she was twenty-one. What he really did say was that she had to marry under his roof before reaching her majority. The fortune was fairly large and the uncle was tricky. He determined not to let the girl marry any one and thereby secure the money himself. For a time it looked as though his scheme would be successful, but a shrewd man found a way to circumvent him. This resourceful individual was a justice of the peace, and a great friend of the girl’s father, and the sheriff of the county with whom she was in love. He put a job on the crooked uncle just five days before the girl’s twenty-first birthday. The uncle was arrested for fighting and sent to the county jail for five days. The jail is the sheriff’s home, and under these circumstances it was also the uncle’s roof, so the justice of the peace married the girl and the sheriff under “the uncle’s roof” (the prison corridor outside his cell). It was still the uncle’s roof when the girl reached her majority, for the uncle had to serve out his term, while his niece and her husband naturally set up housekeeping in the sheriff’s quarters. Thus did a crook find that there is more than one way to interpret a will.