"I ask your pardon, sir, but you called me Welch, or some such name," replied the late servant, as Christy was sure he was in spite of his denial.
"I called you Walsh; and that is the name to which you responded at two o'clock this morning," persisted the lieutenant.
"That is not my name, sir; and I refer you to the ship's papers to prove it. I am not the man to be ashamed of my name, which is not Welch or Walsh, sir, if you will excuse me for saying so."
"Will you deny that you were employed as a servant at the house of Captain Passford, at Bonnydale on the Hudson?" demanded Christy, with not a little energy in his tones and manner.
"Where, sir, if you please?" asked the sailor, with a sort of bewildered look.
"At Bonnydale!"
"Boddyvale? I never heard of the place before in my life, sir," answered the runaway servant.
Possibly the man under examination was not wholly responsible for his distortion of the name of Captain Passford's estate, as Christy was beginning to reap the penalty of his imprudence the night before, in exposing himself barefooted and half-clothed to the chill midnight air, and was developing a cold in the head that already affected his enunciation.
"Bonnydale!" repeated the officer, after using his handkerchief, and thus improving his utterance of the word.
"I never heard of the place before, sir," persisted the seaman.