His step-mother told my aunt so. He
seems to be absolutely hopeless." She smiled. "You're looking
quite sad, Mr. Bayliss. Cheer up! You may look like him, but you
aren't him he?--him?--no, 'he' is right. The soul is what counts.
If you've got a good, virtuous, Algernonish soul, it doesn't
matter if you're so like Jimmy Crocker that his friends come up
and talk to you in restaurants. In fact, it's rather an
advantage, really. I'm sure that if you were to go to my aunt and
pretend to be Jimmy Crocker, who had come over after all in a fit
of repentance, she would be so pleased that there would be
nothing she wouldn't do for you. You might realise your ambition
of being adopted by a millionaire. Why don't you try it? I won't
give you away."
"Before they found me out and hauled me off to prison, I should
have been near you for a time. I should have lived in the same
house with you, spoken to you--!" Jimmy's voice shook.
Ann turned her head to address an imaginary companion.
"You must listen to this, my dear," she said in an undertone. "He
speaks _wonderfully!_ They used to call him the Boy Orator in his
home-town. Sometimes that, and sometimes Eloquent Algernon!"
Jimmy eyed her fixedly. He disapproved of this frivolity.
"One of these days you will try me too high--!"
"Oh, you didn't hear what I was saying to my friend, did you?"
she said in concern. "But I meant it, every word.
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