He called himself Charlie Bowser because in his pride he considered it would be lowering his father's caste somewhat to travel second class with his own name.
But apart from his musical talents some of the ladies aft took a great fancy for our saucy self-contained boy. There was a mystery about him, too, which was fascinating to many. Nor, when asked, did he hesitate to say that he was travelling under an assumed name.
"But why should you run away from home, Charlie?" asked one lady, "so bright a lad as you?"
"Only just to see a little life, dear lady," said the boy. "Perhaps there is something radically wrong with my idiosyncracy, you know, but I assure you I'm not running away an account of any evil I have done. I'm not cut-purse and I never held up a coach nor even a motor-car."
"You are very young, Charlie!"
"A man," he replied, "is just as old as he feels, so I must be quite twenty."
"I had the best Italian masters," he replied to another lady, who was praising his musical talents. "My father talks several languages."
"And your mother, Charlie."
"Mother talked many more languages than father. But mother is with the saints in Heaven, madam." This with a sigh.
"And in Heaven," he added, "they talk Latin, I suppose, or a kind of refined Volapuk."