"Come inside, Mr. Johnson," said Blackstock, "an' sit down. We must talk this over a bit. It is kind o' sudden, you see."
"I don't want to seem unsympathetic," said the visitor kindly, "and I know my little nephew is going to resent my carrying him off." (At these words Woolly Billy began to realize what was in the air, and clung to Blackstock with a storm of frightened tears.) "But you will understand that I have to catch the next boat from New York—and I have a thirty-mile drive before me now to the nearest railway station. You know what the roads are! So I'm sure you won't think me unreasonable if I ask you to get my nephew ready as soon as possible."
Blackstock devoted a few precious moments to quieting the child's sobs before replying. He remembered having found out in some way, from some papers in the drowned Englishman's pockets or somewhere, that the name of Woolly Billy's mother, before her marriage, was not Johnson, but O'Neill. Of course that discrepancy, he realized, might be easily explained, but his quick suspicions, sharpened by his devotion to the child, were aroused.
"We are not a rich family, by any means, Mr. Blackstock," continued the stranger, after a pause. "But we have enough to be able to reward handsomely those who have befriended us. All possible expense that my nephew may have been to you, I want to reimburse you for at once. And I wish also to make you a present as an expression of my gratitude—not, I assure you, as a payment," he added, noticing that Blackstock's face had hardened ominously. He took out a thick bill-book, well stuffed with banknotes.
"Put away your money, Mr. Johnson," said Blackstock coldly. "I ain't taking any, thank you, for what I may have done for Woolly Billy. But what I want to know is, what authority have you to demand the child?"
"I'm his uncle, his mother's brother," answered the stranger sharply, drawing himself up.
"That may be, an' then again, it mayn't," said Blackstock. "Do you think I'm goin' to hand over the child to a perfect stranger, just because he comes and says he's the child's uncle? What proofs have you?"
The visitor glared angrily, but restrained himself and handed Blackstock his card.
Blackstock read it carefully.
"What does that prove?" he demanded sarcastically. "It might not be your card! An' even if you are 'Mr. Johnson' all right, that's not proving that Mr. Johnson is the little feller's uncle! I want legal proof, that would hold in a court of law."