Bachelor Billy listened with intense interest, and when he had heard
the boy's story to the end he dashed the tears from his eyes and said:
"Gie's your han' Ralph; gie's your twa han's! Ye're a braw lad. Son or
no son o' Robert Burnham, ye're fit to stan' ony day in his shoes!"

He was looking down with strong admiration into the boy's pale face,
holding the small hands affectionately in both of his.

"I come just as quick as I could," continued the boy, "after I got
over thinkin' I'd keep still about it, just as quick as I could, to
tell you an' ask you what to do. I'll do anything 'at you tell me it's
right to do, Uncle Billy, anything. If you'll only say I must do it,
I will. But it's awful hard to do it all alone, to let 'em know who I
am, to give up everything so, an' not to have any mother any more, nor
no sister, nor no home, nor no learnin', nor nothing; not anything at
all, never, any more; it's terrible! Oh, Uncle Billy, it's terrible!"

Then, for the first time since the dreadful words of Rhyming Joe fell
on his ears in the darkness of Sharpman's office, Ralph gave way to
tears. He wept till his whole frame shook with the deep force of his
sobs.

Bachelor Billy put his arm around the boy and drew him to his side. He
smoothed back the tangled hair from the child's hot forehead and spoke
rude words of comfort into his ears, and after a time Ralph grew
quiet.

"Do you think, Uncle Billy," asked Ralph, "'at Rhymin' Joe was
a-tellin' the truth? He used to lie, I know he did, I've heard 'im
lie myself."

"It looks verra like, Ralph, as though he might 'a' been a-tellin' o'
the truth; he must 'a' been knowin' to it all, or he could na tell it
so plain."

"Oh! he was; he knew all about it. I remember him about the first
thing. He was there most all the time. But I didn't know but he might
just 'a' been lyin' to get that money."

"It's no' unlikely. But atween the twa, I'd sooner think it was the
auld mon was a-tellin' o' the lee. He has more to make out o' it, do
ye see?"

"Well, there's the evidence in court."

"True, but Lawyer Sharpman kens the worth o' that as well as ony o'
us. An he was na fearfu' that the truth would owerbalance it, he wadna
gi' a mon a hunderd an' fifty dollars to hold his tongue. I'm doubtfu'
for ye, Ralph, I'm verra doubtfu'."

Ralph had believed Rhyming Joe's story from the beginning, but he felt
that this belief must be confirmed by Uncle Billy in order to put it
beyond que