The Doctor approached, and stood for a moment
watching him.
"What's the matter with your foot?"* he asked, after a pause.
* This apparent classical plagiarism is actually a fact of
identification on record in the California Law Reports. It is
therefore unnecessary for me to add that the attendant
circumstances and characters are purely fictitious.--B. H.
"Born so."
The first and second toe were joined by a thin membrane.
"Both alike?" asked the Doctor.
"Yes," said the young man, exhibiting the other foot.
"What did you say your name was?"
"I didn't say it. It's Henry Guest, same as my father's."
"Where were you born?"
"Dentville, Pike County, Missouri."
"What was your mother's name?"
"Spalding, I reckon."
"Where are your parents now?"
"Mother got divorced from father, and married again down South,
somewhere. Father left home twenty years ago. He's somewhere in
California--if he ain't dead."
"He isn't dead."
"How do you know?"
"Because I am Henry Guest, of Dentville, and"--he stopped, and,
shading his eyes with his hand as he deliberately examined the
tramp, added coldly--"your father, I reckon."
There was a slight pause. The young man put down the boot he had
taken up. "Then I'm to stay here?"
"Certainly not. Here my name is only West, and I have no son.
You'll go on to San Jose, and stay there until I look into this
thing. You haven't got any money, of course?" he asked, with a
scarcely suppressed sneer.
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