"Ha! ha! you can't fool me!" he screamed. "You're in the water--the same old face! Haven't I looked at it many a time from the deck of the Kitty? But you're dead, yes dead, and you can't tell anything!" and he fell back on the bed with a groan.
"You must keep quiet," said Mont, who, to tell the truth, was highly excited himself; "you are wounded in the shoulder, and will fare badly if you don't take things easy."
But Pooler either could or would not pay any attention to Mont's advice. He kept muttering to himself--at one moment apparently in his right mind and at the next talking at random.
"Who did you say you were?" he asked during a lucid interval.
The young man did not reply. He knew that under the circumstances to do so would only excite the man.
"Oh, I know--Monterey Gray. But you're not. Monterey Gray is dead," and the miser chuckled.
"You are thinking of my father," said Mont finally.
Max Pooler glared at him.
"'Tain't so!" he cried, and then, after a pause: "Who was that other young man?"
"My friend, Jack Willington."