"Yes, a grandfather. I really had a grandfather! And I have him still. And you have seen him, and his name is Dr. Beresford Jones. And, moreover, I had a great-grandfather back of him; and also forefathers behind them, and ancestors extending away back to antiquity. In fact, I think they ran away back to Adam!"
"I dare say they did," answered Victor, with a smile; "but tell me about that grandfather."
"Well, you must know that he was wealthy. He owned Beresford Manors. He had one child, 'sole daughter of the house.' She married a poor young Italian music-master against her father's will. Her father cast her off. Her husband took her to New York, where they fell by degrees into the deepest destitution. They both died of cholera, leaving me to the care of the miserable beings who were their fellow-lodgers in the old tenement house. I believe I was passed from the hands of one beggar to those of another, until my identity was lost and my real name forgotten. But I do not clearly remember any of my owners except Sal. And I was called 'Sal's Kid.'"
"It was then I knew you," said Victor.
"So it was. Well, you know all about that period. It was soon after you went to sea that Sal's husband, being mad with drink and jealousy, struck his wife a fatal blow and killed her."
"Horrible!"
"Yes, horrible! I have heard since that the man died of mania-à-potu in the Tombs, before his trial came on."
"And you?"
"I was taken by the Commissioners of Charity and put into the Orphan Asylum at Randall's Island."
"And how did your grandfather ever find you there, where your very name was lost?"