I hope you have not lost your father ?" "I can't well lose what I have never had," retorted the medical student, with a harsh mocking laugh.
"What you have never had!" The strange man suddenly caught Arthur's hand again, suddenly looked once more hard in his face.
"Yes," he said, with a repetition of the bitter laugh.

"You have brought a poor devil back into the world who has no business there.

Do I astonish you?
Well, I have a fancy of my own for telling you what men in my situation generally keep a secret.

I have no name and no father.

The merciful law of society tells me I am nobody's son! Ask your father if he will be my father too, and help me on in life with the family name." Arthur looked at me more puzzled than ever.
I signed to him to say nothing, and then laid my fingers again on the man's wrist.No.In spite of the extraordinary speech that he had just made, he was not, as I had been disposed to suspect, beginning to get light-headed.