Then the boy suddenly turned questioner.
"You know Aunt--Miss Merrick, sir ?" "I used to, when we were both younger." "Any relation, sir ?" "Just a brother, that's all." Kenneth stopped short, and the mare stopped, and the little man, with a whimsical smile at the boy's astonishment, also stopped.
"I didn't know she had a brother, sir--that is, living." "She had two; but Will's dead, years ago, I'm told.

I'm the other." "John Merrick ?" "That's me.

I went west a long time ago; before you were born, I guess.

We don't get much news on the coast, so I sort of lost track of the folks back east, and I reckon they lost track of me, for the same reason." "You were the tinsmith ?" "The same.

Bad pennies always return, they say.