"I'll tell you all about it. There's a chap at our school—the Academy, you know—who's awfully stuck up. He's all the time bragging about belonging to a first family in Boston, and turning up his nose at poorer boys. We want to mortify him."
"Just so!" said Abner, nodding. "Drive ahead!"
"Well, we thought if you'd call at the school and ask after him, and pretend he was a cousin of yours, and all that, it would make him mad."
"Oh, I see," said Abner, nodding, "he wouldn't like to own a tin-pedler for his cousin."
"No," said Tom; "he wants us to think all his relations are rich. I wouldn't mind at all myself," he added, it suddenly occurring to him that Abner's feelings might be hurt.
"Good!" said Abner, "I see you aint one of the stuck-up kind. I've got some relations in Boston myself, that are rich and stuck up. I never go near 'em. What's the name of this chap you're talkin' about?"
"Fletcher—Fitzgerald Fletcher."
"Fletcher!" repeated Abner. "Whew! well, that's a joke!"
"What's a joke?" asked Tom, rather surprised.
"Why, he is my relation—a sort of second cousin. Why, my mother and his father are own cousins. So, don't you see we're second cousins?"