son for a long time, but owing to his having spoken once about ME, she
was emboldened to write and ask me if I knew what had gone of him." He
was pointing his finger at each line of the letter as he read it, or
rather seemed to translate it from memory with a sad familiarity. "Now,"
he continued in parenthesis, "you see this kind o' got me. I knew he had
got relatives in Kentucky. I knew that all this trouble had been put in
the paper with his name and mine, but this here name of Martha Jeffcourt
at the bottom didn't seem to jibe with it. Then I remembered that he had
left a lot of letters in his trunk in the shanty, and I looked 'em over.
And I found that his name WAS Tom Jeffcourt, and that he'd been passin'
under the name of Frisbee all this time."

"Perfectly natural and a frequent occurrence," interposed the Colonel
cheerfully. "Only last year I met an old friend whom we'll call Stidger,
of New Orleans, at the Union Club, 'Frisco. 'How are you, Stidger?' I
said; 'I haven't seen you since we used to meet--driving over the Shell
Road in '53.' 'Excuse me, sir,' said he, 'my name is not Stidger, it's
Brown.' I looked him in the eye, sir, and saw him quiver. 'Then I must
apologize to Stidger,' I said, 'for supposing him capable of changing
his name.' He came to me an hour after, all in a tremble. 'For God's
sake, Star,' he said,--always called me Star,--'don't go back on me,
but you know family affairs--another woman, beautiful creature,' etc.,
etc.,--yes, sir, perfectly common, but a blank mistake. When a man once
funks his own name he'll turn tail on anything. Sorry for this man,
Friezecoat, or Turncoat, or whatever's his d----d name; but it's so."

The suggestion did not, however, seem to raise the stranger's spirits
or alter his manner. "His name was Jeffcourt, and this here was his
mother," he went on drearily; "and you see here she says"--pointing
to the letter again--"she's been expecting money from him and it don't