“You can affirm that with confidence!” remarked Mr. Lindsey, drily.  “There is!”

“Well—­about my father,” continued Smeaton.  “All I know is this—­and I got it from hearsay:  His name—­the name given to me, anyway—­was Martin Smeaton.  He hailed from somewhere about Berwick.  Whether it was on the English side or the Scottish side of the Tweed I don’t know.  But he went to America as a young man, with a young wife, and they were in New Orleans when I was born.  And when I was born, my mother died.  So I never saw her.”

“Do you know her maiden name?” asked Mr. Lindsey.

“No more than that her Christian name was Mary,” replied Smeaton.  “You’ll find out as I go on that it’s very little I do know of anything—­definitely.  Well, when my mother died, my father evidently left New Orleans and went off travelling.  I’ve made out that he must have been a regular rolling stone at all times—­a man that couldn’t rest long in one place.  But he didn’t take me with him.  There was a Scotsman and his wife in New Orleans that my father had forgathered with—­some people of the name of Watson,—­and he left me with them, and in their care in New Orleans I remained till I was ten years old.  From my recollection he evidently paid them well for looking after me—­there was never, at any time, any need of money on my account.  And of course, never having known any other, I came to look on the Watsons as father and mother.  When I was ten years old they returned to Scotland—­here to Dundee, and I came with them.  I have a letter or two that my father wrote at that time giving instructions as to what was to be done with me.  I was to have the best education—­as much as I liked and was capable of—­and, though I didn’t then, and don’t now, know all the details, it’s evident he furnished Watson with plenty of funds on my behalf.  We came here to Dundee, and I was put to the High School, and there I stopped till I was eighteen, and then I had two years at University College.  Now, the odd thing was that all that time, though I knew that regular and handsome remittances came to the Watsons on my behalf from my father, he never expressed any wishes, or made any suggestions, as to what I should do with myself.  But I was all for commercial life; and when I left college, I went into an office here in the town and began to study the ins and outs of foreign trade.  Then, when I was just twenty-one, my father sent me a considerable sum—­two thousand pounds, as a matter of fact—­saying it was for me to start business with.  And, do you know, Mr. Lindsey, from that day—­now ten years ago—­to this, I’ve never heard a word of him.”

Mr. Lindsey was always an attentive man in a business interview, but I had never seen him listen to anybody so closely as he listened to Mr. Smeaton.  And after his usual fashion, he at once began to ask questions.

“Those Watsons, now,” he said.  “They’re living?”

“No,” replied Smeaton.  “Both dead—­a few years ago.”