"You don't know him! The man who has been cleaning the brass work on the
doors?" exclaimed Christy.

"Oh! Pink, we all call him," said the steward.

"His name is Pinkney Mulgrum," Flint explained.

"Yes, sir; I know him, though we never had any long talks together,"
added Dave with a rich smile on his face.

"Go on deck, and tell Mulgrum to come into my cabin," said Christy.

"If I tell him that, he won't hear me," suggested Dave.

"Show him this paper," interposed the first lieutenant, handing him a
card on which he had written the order.

Dave left the cabin to deliver the message, and the captain immediately
instructed Flint to question the man in regard to the localities and
other matters in Cherryfield, suggesting that he should conduct his
examination so as not to excite any suspicion. Pink Mulgrum appeared
promptly, and was placed at the table where both of the officers could
observe his expression. Then Flint began to write on a sheet of paper,
and passed his first question to the man. It was: "Don't you remember
me?" Mulgrum wrote that he did not. Then the inquisitor asked when he
had left Cherryfield to attend the school at Hartford; and the date he
gave placed him there at the very time when Flint had been the master of
the school for four months. On the question of locality, he could place
the church, the schoolhouse and the hotel; and he seemed to have no
further knowledge of the town. When asked where his father lived, he