"
"I am not."
"Then you needn't go for to put on the coat. But you're out of your
reckoning, I guess. I remember your mother very well. She was Susan
Baker."
"Is that true, Fitz?"
"Ye--es," answered Fitz, reluctantly.
"I told you so," said the pedler, triumphantly.
"Perhaps he is your cousin, after all," said Henry Fairbanks.
"I tell you he isn't," said Fletcher, impetuously.
"How should he know your mother's name, then, Fitz?" asked Tom.
"Some of you fellows told him," said Fitzgerald.
"I can say, for one, that I never knew it," said Tom.
"Nor I."
"Nor I."
"We used to call her Sukey Baker," said Abner. "She used to go to
the deestrict school along of Mother. They was in the same class. I
haven't seen your mother since you was a baby. How many children has
she got?"
"I must decline answering your impertinent questions." said
Fitzgerald, desperately. He began to entertain, for the first time,
the horrible suspicion that the pedler's story might be true--that he
might after all be his cousin. But he resolved that he never would
admit it--NEVER! Where would be his pretentious claims to
aristocracy--where his pride--if this humiliating discovery were
made? Judging of his school-fellows and himself, he feared that they
would look down upon him.
"You seem kind o' riled to find that I am your cousin," said Abner.
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