“He never said a word whilst Buck gave his credentials. Then:
“‘You’re Mary’s son,’ said he. ‘You’ve got her eyes. How long have you been in this town?’
“‘A fortnight,’ says the other.
“‘Why didn’t you call before?’ asks Pat.
“‘Didn’t like to,’ said Buck. ‘I was hard up and I didn’t want to cadge on you.’
“‘Why did you call to-night?’ he asks.
“Buck tells him and shows the paper. Pat ordered in cigars—we weren’t having drinks—then he put on a pair of old spectacles and looks at the paper back and front.
“Buck puts him wise on the business, and when the old man had tumbled to it, he asked Buck right out whether he was crazy to think that a Chink would give away an oyster shell let alone a shell lagoon, but when he heard the facts of the matter, and how Buck had risked being knifed to save Fong being kicked to death, he came round a bit in his opinions.
“‘Maybe I’m wrong,’ he says, ‘and here’s a spot of blood on the paper. You haven’t noticed that, have you? Looks as if the thing had been through the wars. Well, leave it with me for the night to sleep on and call again in the morning, and now let’s talk about the old country.’
“Then the old man sticks the paper in a drawer and begins to put Buck through his paces. Pat hadn’t been in Tralee for forty years, but there wasn’t a street he’d forgotten or a name, and he took Buck through that town by the scruff of his neck, cross-questioning him about the shops and the people and the places, and as he sat there with his old monkey face screwed up and his eyes like steel gimlets boring holes in us, I began to understand how he’d come to be a millionaire; then he got on family matters, and by the end of the talk he’d come to understand that Buck was his nephew all right and we lit, promising to call on him in the morning.