“Everyone knows about it,” snapped Jawn.
“Of course, Walter,” Richard explained, “when father died I was no longer a ‘junior.’ We have the same name. Naturally you had never heard of me. I have the distinguished name and have done nothing to earn it. That’s why I am so contented with this nondescript Mr. Richard. You can’t imagine how pleasant it is not to be questioned and stared at. It’s a dreadful nuisance to have distinguished parents.”
“Please don’t be disrespectful to the father of my own offspring,” Jawn objected. “I’m getting to be a notorious character, with my name in the print every time a bug gets loose in somebody’s head. By the time my children come along I’ll be as famous as Mr. Riley whom they speak of so highly; I mean Mr. Riley who keeps the hotel. Have you heard the song, Walter? Well, you will.” And he sung it as only an Irishman can.
So they were going to keep up the bluff, act it out boldly; they were a daring lot, thought Walter; but they couldn’t fool him.
“If he’s the B-Big Gun,” Walter persisted, “he’d be r-rich.”
“No, Walter,” Richard was very patient. “That was father’s money, not mine. He made it, not I. Since I left college I have been making my own way. Money doesn’t interest me, especially money I have never earned. I couldn’t be happy with it; it would be just a refined sort of slavery, and I have always preferred to be free. Let’s don’t talk about it, if you don’t mind.”
“But I don’t see——” Walter began.
“Then shut up!” cried Jawn brutally.
“Jawn!” remonstrated Richard.
“By George, I’m forgetting myself!” Jawn showed all his big teeth in an expansive grin. “Listen at me shutting up the captain of the boat! It’s mutiny they’ll be charging me with, and be hanging me at the yardarm.” He cocked an eye aloft. “Is that her yardarm, up there, sticking indecently out of the top of her stays?”