ball into your ribs. It's lyin' here a week sick you've been, and, savin' your pardon, the sooner you tell me where your folks live the better. They'll be fair wild about you."
The sick man closed his eyes again. "I have no family at all," he said. It was the first time in years that the thoroughgoing extent of that fact had been brought home to him.
His nurse was moved to sympathy over so awful a fate. "Sure an' don't I know how 'tis. Pat an' I left every one of our kith behind us, mostly, when we come away, and it's that hungry for thim that I get. I dare say it ill becomes me to say it, but the first thing I says to myself when I see you was how like you are to one of my father's brothers in County Kerry. It's been a real comfort to have you here sick, as though I had some of my own kin near. His name was Jerry. It's not possible, is't, that the J. on your handkerchief stands for Jerry, too?"
For the first time since he had left Woodville J. M. disclosed the grotesque secret of his initials. In the flaccid indifference of convalescence it flowed from him painlessly. "My name is Jeroboam Mordecai."
"Exactly to a hair like Uncle Jerry's!" cried Mrs. McCartey, overjoyed by the coincidence. "Except that his J. stood for Jeremiah and his M. for Michael. If you will tell me your last name, too, I'll try and lambaste the children into callin' you proper. Not havin' sorra name to speak of you by, and hearin' me say to Pat how you favored my father's brother, haven't they taken to callin' you Uncle Jerry—more shame to them!"
The mention of the children awoke to life J. M.'s old
