A faint look of gratification crossed the boy's face, but he only said
stoically: "Twelve year's my age."
"What do you do in the wintertime when there isn't much odd-jobbing? How
do you get along then?"
"I git along awright. Sometimes I git help. Off a lady here, a frien' o'
mine."
"What lady? What's her name?"
"Name o' Miss Mary. Miss Carstair, some calls her. I git money and clo's
off her. I'd 'a' had some bum winters, hadn't ben for her."
There was a pause, and then Varney said: "What's your name, my boy?"
Again the boy hesitated. "Tommy," he said presently.
"Tommy what?"
"Tommy--Orrick."
Varney started. Of all the sordid Hunston of the natives, that was the
one name which meant anything to him. It was rather a curious
coincidence.
"Then I suppose old Sam Orrick," he said kindly, "is your father's
father."
"Nawser," he answered slowly. And he added presently, "He wuz me
mudder's father."
After that, the silence lengthened. Varney looked off down the river.
Tommy Orrick, whose father was named something else, clapped his hand
suddenly to his lip, because his cigar just then scorched it unbearably.
"What is your father's name, Tommy?" asked Varney, in a low voice.
His back toward Varney, his fragment of a cigar poised, reluctantly
ready to drop, the boy shook his head. "I don't rightly know," he said
in his husky little voice.
But Varney knew that name: and he said it now slowly over to himself in
a dull and futile anger.
From the shore a boat put out hurriedly and the faithful steward came
flying over the water with meritorious speed. With him he was bringing
the papers that might settle the _Cypriani's_ mission, but Varney, for
the moment, hardly gave him a thought. His own affairs were blotted from
his mind just then by the tragedy of the little waif before him,
luckless victim of another's sin, small flotsam which barely weathered
the winters when odd-jobbing was scarce, and only one lady cared.
"Where do you live, Tommy?"
"Kerrigan's loft mostly--w'en Kerrigan ain't dere."
"This morning," said Varney rapidly, "I'm just as busy as a bee. But
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