"Robert Burnham's son? You don't mean the rich coal proprietor who died at his mine in Scranton last spring?"
"Yes, he's the one I mean. I'm his son."
Rhyming Joe leaned across the table, lifted up the boy's chin, and looked into his eyes. "My dear young friend," he said, "I fear you have fallen into evil ways since you passed out of the range of my beneficent influence. But you should not try to impose so glittering a romance on the verdant credulity of an old acquaintance at the first meeting in many weary years."
"To your faithful friend and true,
Tell the truth, whate'er you do."
"Tis true!" asserted Ralph, stoutly. "Gran'pa Simon says so, an' Lawyer Sharpman says so, an' Mrs. Burnham, she—she—she almost believes it, too, I guess."
The bar-tender approached again and asked what else they would have.
"A little something to wash the dinner down with, Bummerton," said
Joe, turning again quickly to Ralph.
"Then why don't you live in the Burnham mansion?" he asked, "and leave rude toil for others?"
"'Cause my mother ain't able to reco'nize me yet; she can't do it till the suit's ended. They's other heirs, you know."
"Suit! what suit? are you going to have a suit over it?"