"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 this afternoon, or to-morrow morning anyway, I want to come down to Kerrigan's and call on you." "Wut about?" the boy demanded with an instant suspiciousness which was rather pathetic. "About you, Tommy. I have got a little plan in my head, and there isn't any time to talk about it now. What would you say to having a home with some nice people I know in another city--in New York?" A sudden dumbness seized Tommy. His head slowly lowered and he did not answer. Around the deck-house from the port-side hurried McTosh, his arm embracing a bundle of papers, his brow beady with the honest toil of speed wrung out of country paths. "Ah, steward! You made good time. Ask Mr. Maginnis if he won't come on deck when he is at leisure. Thomas, you're for the shore, aren't you? Forward, there!" He got up and stood by the side of grave little Tommy Orrick, who was staring silently down at the white deck. "Down in New York, Tommy, I know a nice woman who has a home and no boys at all to put in it. A long time ago she used to be the nurse of a boy I knew, but he grew up; and now her husband's dead and she's all alone. And here in Hunston is a boy with no home to put himself in. That's you, Tommy, and I--but here's your boat. I'll come to see you to-morrow at Kerrigan's--sure, and we'll talk it all over. Good-bye. And remember that you and I are just the best friends going." He held out his hand, to shake, but Tommy, in an excess of stage-fright at the unwonted ceremonial, nimbly turned his back; and the next instant he slipped over the rail like an acrobat and dropped into the waiting dinghy. Safely there, he glanced tentatively upward; but seeing that the tall man above was still standing at the rail and was smiling down upon him, looked tactfully away again. And Varney heard him say to the oarsman in a snappy, impatient voice: "Pull for all you know, dere! I got bizness dat won't keep."