"You don't know me?" panted my mother.

My uncle would not own he did not, but his curiosity was manifest. My
mother sat down on one of the little chairs before the soap and patent
medicine-piled counter, and her lips opened and closed.

"A glass of water, madam," said my uncle, waved his hand in a sort of
curve and shot away.

My mother drank the water and spoke. "That boy," she said, "takes after
his father. He grows more like him every day.... And so I have brought
him to you."

"His father, madam?"

"George."

For a moment the chemist was still at a loss. He stood behind the
counter with the glass my mother had returned to him in his hand. Then
comprehension grew.

"By Gosh!" he said. "Lord!" he cried. His glasses fell off. He
disappeared replacing them, behind a pile of boxed-up bottles of blood
mixture. "Eleven thousand virgins!" I heard him cry. The glass was
banged down. "O-ri-ental Gums!"

He shot away out of the shop through some masked door. One heard his
voice. "Susan! Susan!"