r. They was in the same class. I
haven't seen your mother since you was a baby. How many children has
she got?"

"I must decline answering your impertinent questions." said
Fitzgerald, desperately. He began to entertain, for the first time,
the horrible suspicion that the pedler's story might be true--that he
might after all be his cousin. But he resolved that he never would
admit it--NEVER! Where would be his pretentious claims to
aristocracy--where his pride--if this humiliating discovery were
made? Judging of his school-fellows and himself, he feared that they
would look down upon him.

"You seem kind o' riled to find that I am your cousin," said Abner.
"Now, Fitz, that's foolish. I aint rich, to be sure, but I'm
respectable. I don't drink nor chew, and I've got five hundred
dollars laid away in the bank."

"You're welcome to your five hundred dollars," said Fitz, in what was
meant to be a tone of withering sarcasm.

"Am I? Well, I'd orter be, considerin' I earned it by hard work.
Seems to me you've got high notions, Fitz. Your mother was kind of
flighty, and I've heard mine say Cousin Jim--that's your father--was
mighty sot up by gettin' rich. But seems to me you ought not to deny
your own flesh and blood."

"I don't know who you refer to, sir."

"Why, you don't seem to want to own me as your cousin."

"Of course not. You're only a common tin-pedler."

"Well, I know I'm a tin-pedler, but that don't change my bein' your
cousin."

"I wish my father was here to expose your falsehood."

"Hold on there!" said Abner. "You're goin' a leetle too far. I
don't let no man, nor boy neither, charge me with lyin', if he is my
cousin, I don't stand that, nohow."

There was something in Abner's tone which convinced Fitzgerald that
he was in earnest, and that he himself must take care not to go too
far.

"I don't wish to have anything more to say to you," said Fitz."

"I say, boys," said Abner, turning to the crowd who had now formed a
circle around the cousins, "I leave it to you if it aint mean for
Fitz to treat me in that way. If he was to come to my house, that
aint the way I'd treat him."

"Come, Fitz," said Tom, "you are not behaving right. I would not
treat my cousin that way."

"He isn't my cousin, and you know it," said Fitz, stamping with rage.

"I wish I wasn't," said Abner. "If I could have my pick, I'd rather
have him," indicating Tom. "But blood can't be wiped out. We're
cousi