ur own name."

"Everybody calls me Little Bobtail, and it wouldn't be strange if I
forgot my own name," replied the boy.

"I'm told your father's habits are not very good."

"Zeke Taylor's? He isn't my father; he is my mother's second husband;
and my father died when I was small."

"Your mother must have a hard time of it with a drunken husband."

"That's so; I wish she would leave him; and I think she will, for he
don't do much, and spends all he gets for rum. He's ugly, too, and tries
to get her money away from her."

"Then your mother has money of her own?"

"I don't know; there's something strange about it," replied Bobtail,
looking into the face of his companion, and wondering what he was
"driving at." "Zeke says she has money hid away from him."

"Then you have thought of the matter?"

"Well, I can't see, for the life of me, how she supports the family."

"Well you don't know much--not even your own name," laughed Mr.
Barkesdale again.

"I know that my father's name was Wayland, and by rights mine ought to
be Wayland."

"Are you quite sure of that?"

"Of course I am. I know what my mother told me. I was born in the Island
of Cuba."

"That's true, but not the rest of it."

"What do you mean?"

"Your name is not Wayland."

"What is it, then?" asked Bobtail, amazed beyond expression.

"Your name is Robert Barkesdale Montague--the middle name after me."

"You don't mean so!"

"I do; and when you see your mother, as you call her, she will tell you
the same thing."

"Isn't she my mother?" asked Bobtail,--or rather Robert, as we shall
insist upon calling him now,--with a gasp of astonishment.

"She is not; she is a very worthy woman, but she is not your mother."

"Well, who is my mother?"

"The first Mrs. Montague, of course; she died in Cuba when you were only
a few months old. Mrs. Wayland--as she was then--was your nurse. She has
brought you up, and brought you up very well too, for it appears that
you are an honest, good boy, noble, brave, and intelligent."

"But what's the reason I never knew anything about this before?" asked
the puzzled youth.

"I'll tell you;" and Mr. Barkesdale told the story which is related in
the first two chapters.

"I supposed I had a mother, but no father. It turns out just the other
way," said Robert, rubbing his throbbing head.

"And your father is one of the best men in the world."

"Mrs. Taylor is one of the best women in the world; and I shall be