Then it was Sam Hardy who spoke, and he found it necessary to clear his throat several times before it was possible to control his voice. “What was your father’s name, Benny?” “It was Stephen G., but I don’t believe the man who wrote that letter is my uncle, because if he is, why didn’t I know something about him? Or, when father and mother were so sick, why didn’t he write to them?” “Of course that’s a question we can’t answer, lad. It may be your folks didn’t send him word, or, perhaps the letters went astray. There are a dozen good reasons which might be found, and it ain’t likely he’d be claimin’ a boy he never saw if there wasn’t any relationship between ’em.” “I hung ’round Calcutta long enough for him to claim me if he’d wanted to, an’ surely he must have known father was dead, ’cause I’ve heard mother say it was reported among the shippin’ news in all the American papers.” “You don’t seem to be very much pleased at the idea of havin’ an uncle up in ’York State?” Sam Hardy said, speaking a trifle more cheerfully than before, and Benny cried excitedly: “Pleased! Of course I ain’t! He can’t be much of an uncle, else he would have helped father an’ mother along when they needed it. He can write a dozen letters before I’ll go anywhere to live off of people that ain’t wantin’ me very bad, else I’d have heard from ’em long ago.” “This ain’t a matter to be settled off-hand, Benny,” Keeper Downey said gravely. “If the man who wrote this letter is your uncle, and it seems he is, I’m not certain but that he could force you by law to go with him. At all events, it’s his duty to give you some help in the world, and we must look at the matter from all sides before deciding.” “If you’d rather I wouldn’t stay here, Mr. Downey, Fluff an’ me will go off somewhere else; but we won’t take up with his offer.”