They hoped for an account of things,
and also that he would allow them to "take turns" riding his pony to
the end of the alley and back.
They were really his henchmen: Georgie was a lord among boys. In
fact, he was a personage among certain sorts of grown people, and was
often fawned upon; the alley negroes delighted in him, chuckled over
him, flattered him slavishly. For that matter, he often heard well-
dressed people speaking of him admiringly: a group of ladies once
gathered about him on the pavement where he was spinning a top. "I
know this is Georgie!" one exclaimed, and turned to the others with
the impressiveness of a showman. "Major Amberson's only grandchild!"
The others said, "It is?" and made clicking sounds with their mouths;
two of them loudly whispering, "So handsome!"
Georgie, annoyed because they kept standing upon the circle he had
chalked for his top, looked at them coldly and offered a suggestion:
"Oh, go hire a hall!"
As an Amberson, he was already a public character, and the story of
his adventure in the Reverend Malloch Smith's front yard became a town
topic.
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