“That isn’t my name, but here I am,” responded the boy in the chair.
“No more it is. Alas, for all my sins!” exclaimed the man, “but you cannot deceive your old uncle, my boy. I know what you’re up to. You mean to take advantage of my temporary indisposition and abandon me!”
“That’s it,” said the boy, curtly. “It’ll be two or three days before you get sober enough to follow me, and I’m off.”
“I deserve it, I do,” was the mournful whine of the man on the bed. “I ought never to have brought you to this.”
“I’ve seen you before,” said the boy, “when you were sick and sorry. You brought me, years and years ago, but I’m older now and I don’t mean to stay any longer.”
“What will Monsieur Prosper say when he knows it? He expects great things of you now the troupe’s broken up.”
“Glad it’s gone to pieces,” half savagely remarked the youngster. “I don’t want any more of that. What’s more, I won’t pick pockets or cheat at cards, or that sort of thing, for old Prosper or you either.”
“Oh! alas!” came from the bed, but whether in repentance or disappointment it would be hard to say.
“Now,” said the boy, in a tone of quiet determination, “I’ve been Jack Chills long enough; tell me what my real name is.”
“If you’re really my uncle, you must know, and if you won’t tell, I’ll empty the ice water all over you.”
“No; it won’t kill you, but it’s awful cold,” said the boy, as he advanced towards the bed with a large pitcher in his hand. “Come, now, I must be off before sunrise. Don’t tell me any whopper now. Out with it.”
“Oh!” burst in half-frightened accents from the helpless red-face; but then a very different look began to creep across it.
“It was your father’s before you, and you’re coming out just like him. I reckon it’s that that fetches me now. Bar Vernon, if you make me one promise, I’ll be fair with you.”
“Now that I know my own name, I’ll promise anything,” excitedly exclaimed Barnaby.
“Well, then--quick now, listen, before I change my mind--you see that little black valise?”
“That’s yours, but you must promise not to open it for a year and a day. I’ll be either dead or a thousand miles from here then.”
“Most likely dead,” growled Bar, who evidently bore small affection to his big relative. “But I’ll promise. Will it tell me anything?”