"You wish you was my pa?" says he.
"'Tis a sudden question," says I, "an' a poser."
"You doesn't, then?"
"I didn't say that," says I. "What you wishin' yourself?"
"I isn't wishin' nothin' at all about it," says he. "All I really wants to know is why you called me your son when I isn't no such thing."
"An' you wants an answer t' that?"
"I'd be grateful, sir."
Skipper Harry got the notion from all this talk, mixed with the eager, wistful look o' the lad, as he searched me with questions, t' ease the wonder that gripped an' hurt un, whatever it was—Skipper Harry got the notion that the lad had no father at all that he knowed of, an' that he sorrowed with shame on that account.
"I wish you was my son," says he, t' hearten un. "Danged if I don't!"
The lad flashed 'round on Skipper Harry an' stared at un with his eyes poppin'.