Of course Mabel felt very important indeed when the other youthful castaways, waiting impatiently just outside the tent, seized her and wanted to know all about it.
"He's awfully thin," said Mabel, condescending finally to answer some of the eager little girls' questions. "And his eyes are perfectly huge and sort of twinkly. And blue; yes, bluer than Marjory's. I think we're going to like him; but he can't remember his own name."
"Can't remember his own name!" exclaimed Henrietta. "Perhaps he doesn't want to. Perhaps he's an escaped convict trying to hide from the police. Perhaps he's a burglar——"
"He isn't either," snorted Mabel, indignantly. "Do you s'pose I'd rescue anybody like that? Besides, you can tell. He wants to remember and can't."
"But what," demanded sympathetic Bettie, "will that poor child do for a name? Are we to call him 'that boy' forever? And shout 'Say, Boy' when we want him?"
"Of course not," said Henrietta, promptly. "We'll name him ourselves. Vincent de Manville Holmes would be nice—or Neptune something, because he came out of the sea."
"That was Venus," corrected Jean.
"Oh, well," amended Henrietta, cheerfully, "Ulysses might be better. Still, I always did like Reginald. Or Percival—Percival Orlando de Courcy."
"You go home," blurted indignant Mabel, no longer able to listen in triumphant silence. "His name's Billy. He's my boy and I named him; and that's enough."