"I'm told your father's habits are not very good."
"Zeke Taylor's? He isn't my father; he is my mother's second husband; and my father died when I was small."
"Your mother must have a hard time of it with a drunken husband."
"That's so; I wish she would leave him; and I think she will, for he don't do much, and spends all he gets for rum. He's ugly, too, and tries to get her money away from her."
"Then your mother has money of her own?"
"I don't know; there's something strange about it," replied Bobtail, looking into the face of his companion, and wondering what he was "driving at." "Zeke says she has money hid away from him."
"Then you have thought of the matter?"
"Well, I can't see, for the life of me, how she supports the family."
"Well you don't know much—not even your own name," laughed Mr. Barkesdale again.
"I know that my father's name was Wayland, and by rights mine ought to be Wayland."