Uncle William took it slowly. He studied the thin, keen face. “Benjy Bodet,” he said. “I’d know you—much as you’ve changed—I’d know you! Set right down and tell me all about it.”
“All?” said the man. He laughed again, looking contentedly about the room. “It will take some time.”
“You’ll have to stay quite a while,” said Uncle William.
The man nodded. “I mean to. I’ve wanted to come back ever since the day we sailed for France.”
“You was twelve year old that summer,” said Uncle William. “Your folks come into property, didn’t they, over there?”
“Yes—on my mother’s side. We took her name. I was sick for months after we got there—homesick, cooped up in rooms.”
“You poor little chap!” Uncle William surveyed him. Affection was in his eyes, and memory. “You was al’ays a kind o’ peaked little thing,” he said reflectively. “You hain’t changed much—when you come to look. Take off your whiskers and slick up your hair and fetch down your eyebrows a little—jest about the same.”
The man laughed out. He swung his eyeglasses boyishly from their chain. “Well, you’re not.”
“Me?” Uncle William looked down at his bulk. “More of me—bigger a little, sort o’, mebbe.”
The man nodded. “But just the same underneath.”