“Her name, sir? why, her name’s Bright, of course.”
“Yes, yes, but I mean her maiden name.”
Billy was puzzled. “If you mean the name my father used to call ’er,” he said, “it was Nell.”
“Ah! that’s it—nearly, at least. Nellie she used to be known by. Yes, yes, but that’s not what I want to know. Can you tell me what her name was before she was married?”
“Well now, that is odd,” answered Billy, “I’ve bin pumped somethink in this way before, though nuffin’ good came of it as I knows on. No, I don’t know what she was called afore she was married.”
“Did you ever hear of the name of Bream?” asked the captain anxiously.
“Oh yes, I’ve heerd o’ that name,” said the boy, promptly. “There’s a fish called bream, you know.”
It soon became evident to poor Captain Bream that nothing of importance was to be learned from Billy, he therefore made up his mind at once as to how he should act. Feeling that, with such a possibility unsettled, he would be utterly unfit for his duties with the fleet, he resolved to go straight to Yarmouth.
“What is your mother’s address?” he asked.
Billy gave it him.