“Oh, forget your old names,” said Monty desperately. “Aren’t we going to do anything tonight? Let’s get out and go somewhere. It’s a peach of an evening. Just cold enough to be fine. I was talking to Collins before supper. You know, the colored man who looks after the furnaces. Collins had a new scheme this time. I’ve lent him——”
“What’s his first name?” asked Dud eagerly. “Colored folks have dandy names sometimes.”
“I don’t know. I think it’s Dudley, though. Well, this time——”
“Say, Monty, what’s your first name?” asked Jimmy. “You said the A didn’t stand for anything, but you were just fooling, weren’t you?”
“No, I wasn’t,” responded Monty. “It’s just A. I—I had a grandfather who was called that. You see, he had a name when he started out, but he lived to be very old, and his memory failed him and he couldn’t remember what his name was, and so they just called me A after him.”
“I see,” said Dud. “A for After.”
“But you could have found out what his name was by making inquiries, couldn’t you?” asked Jimmy solicitously. “I suppose there was a record of his birth, wasn’t there?”
“Yes, but he was born on the other side somewhere. No one knew where grandfather came from. Funny, wasn’t it?”
“Very interesting,” agreed Jimmy. “He was your father’s father?”
“Yes—no, my mother’s. She was French: came from—from France.”