“Not very well, sir,” I answered, wondering more and more. “I was little more than a baby when she died, you know.”
“I know,” and he nodded, and gave an odd sort of grunt. “Did you ever hear what her name was, afore she married the Cap’n?”
“Oh, yes!” I cried, suddenly enlightened. “It was Mary Perkins.”
Then, my heart fluttering wildly, I turned an intent and appealing gaze upon the little man beside me.
Naboth Perkins was seized with another of those queer fits of silent merriment, and his shoulders bobbed up and down until a cough caught him, and for a time I feared he would choke to death before he could control the convulsions. But at last he recovered and wiped the tears from his eyes with a brilliant red handkerchief.
“I’m your uncle, lad,” he said, as soon as he could speak.
This was news, indeed, but news that puzzled me exceedingly.
“Why have I never heard of you before?” I asked, soberly.
“Haven’t ye?” he returned, with evident surprise.
“Never.”