“But his family—he comes of a most ordinary family.”
“So do I.”
“You? Why, you have some high-grade ancestors behind you on your mother’s side, at least.”
“I wondered if you believed that, Nelson. If you did, it’s plain you did not see through me completely, as I fancied.”
“What? Do you mean to say that——”
“My father and mother were just poor, illiterate people, neither of whom could trace their pedigree back three generations. To tell you the plain truth, I don’t know anything whatever about my ancestors on either side.”
“But the family portraits you have, and the crest you use upon your stationery?”
“Pure bluff, nothing else. I picked those portraits up as I chanced to find them and fancied they would serve my purpose. Any one who wishes can get a stationer to put a crest on his writing-paper. My father started out in life as a tin peddler; my mother came from an orphan asylum. They settled on a little farm, and by hard work were able in time to buy more land. On that land some years ago oil was struck. It made them rich, and in a wonderfully short time my father drank himself to death.”
Pity was now supplanting anger in Nelson’s heart.
“But why—why did you put up such a bluff, Osgood?”