“Not that I know of,” replied Dud. “Why do they call him ‘Soapy’?”
“Search me! You get all kinds of names out there. Up at the mines there’s a choice collection: ‘Pin Head’ Farrel, ‘Snub’ Thompson, ‘Tejon’ Burns, ‘Last Word’ MacTavish: a bunch of them. Sometimes they sort of earn their names and sometimes they just stumble on them, I guess. ‘Pin Head,’ he’s a big, tall chap with a head six sizes too small for him, and MacTavish is a Scotsman who is always saying ‘If it’s my last wor-r-rd on airth!’ But I don’t know why Thompson is called ‘Snub.’ Nor where Burns gets his nickname.”
“What were you called?” asked Dud.
“Just Monty. That’s my middle name, or part of it. The whole of it’s Montfort. That was my mother’s name. She was French.”
“What’s your first name?” Dud inquired.
“A.”
“A?”
“Yes, A Montfort Crail.”
“But—but doesn’t the A stand for anything?”
“Not a thing. Snakes, fellows, if I eat all this truck I’ll pass in my chips! Where’s this Grafter School you tell about at?”