"I shouldn't have taken you for one. What is your name?"
"Maso—I mean Thom-as Ross Coe," replied the boy, bringing out the syllables with something of an Italian pronunciation.
"Tummarse Errosco? Do you call that an American name?"
"I'll write it," said Maso, blushing. He wrote it in large letters on the edge of a newspaper that was near him.
"Thomas R. Coe," read the consul. "Coe is your name, then?"
"Yes, sir."
"You want something to do, eh? What do you want, and why do you come here for it?"
Maso told his story, or rather a tale which he had prepared on his way to the consulate. It was a confused narrative, because he did not wish to betray anything that could give a clew to his mother's address.
The consul asked questions. "A failure, eh? What failure?"
"It—it wasn't in Leghorn."