“Why have I never heard of you before?” I asked, soberly. “Haven’t ye?” he returned, with evident surprise. “Never.” He looked the stick over carefully, and cut another notch in it. “Well, for one thing,” he remarked, “I’ve never been in these parts afore sence the day I was born. Fer another thing, it stands to reason you was too young to remember, even if Mary had talked to ye about her only brother afore she died an’ quit this ’ere sublunatic spear. An’, fer a third an’ last reason, Cap’n Steele were a man that had little to say about most things, so it’s fair to s’pose he had less to say about his relations. Eh?” “Perhaps it is as you say, sir.” “Quite likely. Yet it’s mighty funny the Cap’n never let drop a word about me, good or bad.” “Were you my father’s friend?” I asked, anxiously. “That’s as may be,” said Mr. Perkins, evasively. “Friends is all kinds, from acquaintances to lovers. But the Cap’n an me wasn’t enemies, by a long shot, an’ I’ve been his partner these ten year back.” “His partner!” I echoed, astonished. The little man nodded. “His partner,” he repeated, with much complacency. “But our dealin’s together was all on a strict business basis. We didn’t hobnob, ner gossip, ner slap each other on the back. So as fer saying we was exactly friends—w’y, I can’t honestly do it, Sam.” “I understand,” said I, accepting his explanation in good faith. “I came here at this time,” continued Mr. Perkins, addressing his speech to the jack-knife, which he held upon the palm of his hand, “to see Cap’n Steele on an important business matter. He had agreed to meet me. But I saw Ned Britton at the tavern, las’ night, an’ heerd fer the first time that the ‘Saracen’ had gone to Davy Jones an’ took the Cap’n with her. So I come up here to have a little talk with you, which is his son and my own nevvy.” “Why didn’t you come up to the house?” I enquired. Mr. Perkins turned upon me his peculiar wink, and his shoulders began to shake again, till I feared more convulsions. But he suddenly stopped short, and with abrupt gravity nodded his head at me several times. “The woman!” he said, in a low voice. “I jest can’t abide women. ’Specially when they’s old an’ given to argument, as Ned Britton says this one is.” I sympathized with him, and said so. Whereat my uncle gave me a look gentle and kindly, and said in a friendly tone: “Sam, my boy, I want to tell you all about myself, that’s your blood uncle an’ no mistake; but first I want you to tell me all about yourself. You’re an orphan, now, an’ my dead sister’s child, an’ I take it I’m the only real friend you’ve got in the world. So now, fire away!”