"Very well," he said. "By-the-by, Wikkey, have you recollected your own other name?"
"Yes, I've minded it. It's Whiston."
"Do you remember your father and mother?"
"I don't remember no father. Mother, she died after I took to the crossing."
"Do you know what her name was before she was married?"
Wikkey shook his head. "Don't know nothink," he said. Lawrence showed him the old Bible, but it awoke no recollections in the boy's mind; he only repeated, "I don't know nothink."
"Wikkey," said Lawrence again, after a silence, "what made you take a fancy to me?"
"I dunno. I liked the looks of yer the very first time as ever you came over, and after that I thought a deal of yer. I thought that if you was King of England, I'd have 'listed and gone for a soldier. I don't think much of queens myself, but I'd have fought for you, and welcome. And I thought as I wouldn't have had you see me cheat Jim of his coppers. I dunno why;" and a look of real perplexity came into Wikkey's face as the problem presented itself to his mind.
"Did you often cheat Jim?"
"Scores o' times," answered the boy composedly. "We'd play pitch-and-toss, and then I'd palm a ha' penny, and Jim he'd never twig." A quick turn of the bony wrist showed how dexterously the trick had been done, and Wikkey went off into a shrill cackle at the recollection of his triumphs. "He's the biggest flat as ever I came across. Why, I've seen him look up and down the gutter for them browns till I thought I'd have killed myself with trying not to laugh out."