In making this last remark, I unwittingly dropped my voice to its natural key. Nat started and raised those large, blue innocent eyes of his, and stared wonderingly at me.
“Did my remark surprise you?” I asked, working harder than I ever did to restrain my gravity.
“It weren’t what you said, but your voice sounded amazingly like a person I used to know, and I thought maybe you might be him.”
“Perhaps I am.”
“No; you don’t look like him. He was about your size, but didn’t dress like you, nor didn’t have such whiskers.”
“What was his name?”
“William Relmond, from New Jersey.”
“William Relmond, from New Jersey,” I repeated, as though trying to recall some half-forgotten remembrance.
“He used to be called ‘Jarsey’ by Bill Biddon,” added Nat, quickly, as if to aid my recollection.