"Tommy—Orrick."
Varney started. Of all the sordid Hunston of the natives, that was the one name which meant anything to him. It was rather a curious coincidence.
"Then I suppose old Sam Orrick," he said kindly, "is your father's father."
"Nawser," he answered slowly. And he added presently, "He wuz me mudder's father."
After that, the silence lengthened. Varney looked off down the river. Tommy Orrick, whose father was named something else, clapped his hand suddenly to his lip, because his cigar just then scorched it unbearably.
"What is your father's name, Tommy?" asked Varney, in a low voice.
His back toward Varney, his fragment of a cigar poised, reluctantly ready to drop, the boy shook his head. "I don't rightly know," he said in his husky little voice.
But Varney knew that name: and he said it now slowly over to himself in a dull and futile anger.
From the shore a boat put out hurriedly and the faithful steward came flying over the water with meritorious speed. With him he was bringing the papers that might settle the Cypriani's mission, but Varney, for the moment, hardly gave him a thought. His own affairs were blotted from his mind just then by the tragedy of the little waif before him, luckless victim of another's sin, small flotsam which barely weathered the winters when odd-jobbing was scarce, and only one lady cared.
"Where do you live, Tommy?"