"Ay, ay, sir."
A few minutes and a boy some fifteen years of age stood before Lieutenant Tempest.
"Bob, are you a good swimmer?" asked the officer.
Bob's face lighted up with a smile, a smile which quickly developed into a grin, which threatened to extend from ear to ear.
He did not answer, but pulled his forelock.
Bob had no other name, for he was a foundling. One night Scarron had discovered a wee might of humanity on the doorstep of a deserted house in New York.
He picked up the child, told the constables of his find, and they very good-naturedly declared that "those who find should keep," so Scarron kept the boy, called him Bob, and educated him in all the learning of the gutter.
Bob profited so well that before he was ten years old he could swear like a trooper, fight like a pugilist, climb a flagpole with the smartest, swim like a fish, and do a very great many other physical feats.
He could not read. He had never tried to write except in his own peculiar manner, which no one else could understand.
His moral faculties were not overbright, but he believed in some power; he had been taught that unless he told the truth and acted honestly, God would take him to some dungeon where the light of day never entered.