"Hire a lawyer to 'vestigate. The lawyer he keeps half the money, an' gives the other half of it to a 'tective, an' then the 'tective, he finds out all about you. Uncle Billy says that's the way. He says if you git a good smart lawyer you can find out 'most anything."
"And suppose you should find your parents, and they should be rich and give you a great deal of money, how would you spend it?"
"Well, I don't know; I'd give a lot of it to Uncle Billy, I guess, an' some to Widow Maloney, an'—an' I'd go to the circus, an'—but I wouldn't care so much about the money, sir, if I could have folks like other boys have. If I could only have a mother, that's what I want worst, a mother to kiss me every day, an' be good to me that way, like mothers are, you know; if I could only jest have that, I wouldn't want nothin' else, not never any more."
The man turned his face away.
"And wouldn't you like to have a father too?" he asked.
"Oh, yes, I would; but I could git along without a father, a real father. Uncle Billy's been a kind o' father to me; but I ain't never had no mother, nor no sister; an' that's what I want now, an" I want 'em very bad. Seems, sometimes, jes' as if I couldn't wait; jes' as if I couldn't stan' it no longer 'thout 'em. Don't—don't you s'pose the things we can't have is the things we want worst?"
"Yes, my boy: yes. You've spoken a truth as old as the ages. That which I myself would give my fortune for I can never have. I mean my little boy who—who died. I cannot have him back. His name too was Ralph."
For a few moments there was silence in the screen-room. The child was awed by the man's effort to suppress his deep emotion.
At last Ralph said, rising:—
"Well, I mus' go now an' tell Uncle Billy."