"I'm talkin' av poor Sam Pepper, Miss Gertrude. He's dead."
"Dead!" burst out Gertrude and Nelson simultaneously.
Mrs. Kennedy nodded her head half a dozen times.
"Yes, dead; cut to pieces on the elevated railroad, at the station close to me little stand. He died wid me a-holdin' av his hand."
"It's too bad," murmured Nelson. "Poor fellow! he had some ways about him that I liked."
"But it's not that I came about," went on Mrs. Kennedy. "Whin they brought the poor man to the sidewalk to wait for an ambulance, I stayed by him, and he says to me, says he, 'Mrs. Kennedy, I have something on me mind,' says he. 'I want to tell it to you,' says he. So says I, 'What is it?' Says he, 'It's about Nelson. He's a good boy,' says he. 'And I aint done right by him. Tell him I stole him from his father, and that his father is Mr. Mark Horton, Miss Gertrude's uncle.'"
"Mark Horton my father!" gasped Nelson, and the room seemed to go round and round in a bewildering whirl. "He my father! Can it be true?"
"It must be true!" cried Gertrude.
"And he says, too, 'Beware of Homer Bulson. He is a thief—he robbed his uncle's safe. I caught him at it. He has his uncle's will, too,' says poor Pepper. 'He wants to git hold of all the money,' says he."