"Your age and weight?" asked the clerk mechanically, at the same time looking at my son keenly, and getting the rest of his description at a glance.
These questions were properly answered, and as the clerk was noting them he asked, "Might I ask what was the gentleman's good luck?"
"Certainly; he has fallen heir to a coal mine in Pennsylvania, and we are endeavoring to hunt him up for the executors of the estate."
"Ah?" said the clerk, driving away with his pen; "will you be so good as to ask Mr. Mallory to step this way?"
My son stepped up to Keating and remarked aloud, "Mr. Mallory, Mr. Mallory, the clerk would like to see you;" and then as Keating stepped to his side, remarked as if for his better information, "He knows your name is Patrick Mallory and that we are from Pittsburg, hunting Taylor, so he can come home and enjoy the property the old man left him; but he wants your entire description."
"Quite so," said the quick-witted Irishman, dryly.
"You've got me, now," said Keating, winking familiarly at the clerk, "when we came over we went under; and so many of us was lost that those saved wasn't worth mendin' as to age, ye see; but concerning heft, why I'd not fear to say I'd turn an honest scale at a hundred an' sixty."
The clerk smiled, but concluded not to ask Mr. Mallory from Pittsburg any more questions.
As soon as he had made his notes, however, William told him that he had examined the lists of all other boats plying between Brashear and Galveston save those of the "Josephine," and requested him to look through them, concluding by describing Taylor, and stating that he might register either as H. G. Taylor and clerk, or under an assumed name, as he was somewhat erratic, and through family troubles, not necessary to explain, he had got into a habit of occasionally traveling incognito.
The clerk readily complied with his request, scanning the pages closely, and repeating the name musingly as if endeavoring to recall where he had heard it. By the time he had got on with the examination of a few pages, William had selected a photograph of Taylor, and on showing it to the clerk the latter seemed to have a certain recollection of having seen him, but a very uncertain recollection as to where, or under what circumstances. He went on repeating the name, however, turning back the pages with his right hand and tracing the names back and forth with the index finger of his left hand, occasionally looking at the photograph as if to assist in forcing a definite recollection, but without any result for so long a time that Messrs. Hill and Mallory of Pittsburg became satisfied that their last hope before arriving at Galveston was gone, when suddenly the clerk carelessly placed the picture beside a certain name and in a manner very similar to a dry-goods clerk on securing a successful "match," in two pieces of cloth, quietly remarked: