Trembling with eagerness, he then cut open the corner, and found, worked withinside, the words: NARCISSUS LE GRAND.
“Narcissus Le Grand!” exclaimed Xit, triumphantly. “That was my father’s title. He must have been a nobleman.”
“If that was your father’s name,” returned Gog, “and I begin to think you have stumbled upon the right person at last, he was a Frenchman, and groom of the pantry to Queen Anne Boleyn.”
“He was a dwarf like yourself,” added Og, “and though the ugliest being I ever beheld, had extraordinary personal vanity.”
“In which respect he mightily resembled his son,” laughed Gog; “and since we have found out the father, I think I can give a shrewd guess at the mother.”
“I hope she was a person of distinction?” cried Xit, whose countenance had fallen at the knowledge he had acquired of his paternity.
“She was a scullion,” replied Gog,—“by name Mab Leather-barrow.”
“A scullion!” ejaculated Xit, indignantly. “I, the son of a scullion,—and of one so basely-named as Leatherbarrow—impossible!”
“I am as sure of it as of my existence,” replied Og. “Your mother was not a jot taller, or more well-favoured than your father; and they both, I now remember, disappeared about the time you were found.”
“Which name will you adopt—Le Grand, or Leatherbarrow?” demanded Gog, maliciously.