"Has He got a beak?" Jacky said, intensely interested.
"Lily, for Heaven's sake," Maurice implored, "doesn't he _ever_ stop?"
"Never," said Lily, resignedly, "except when he's asleep. And nobody can answer him. But I wish he'd let up on God. I tell him whatever pops into my head. When it comes to God, I guess one thing 's as true as another. Anyway, nobody can prove it ain't."
Just as Maurice was going away, his theological son detained him by a little clutch at his coat. "I'll give you a present next time you come," Jacky said, shyly.
Even the hope of a present did not lure Maurice out to Maple Street very soon. But it was self-preservation, as well as fear of discovery, which kept him away. "If I saw much of him I might--well, get kind of fond of the little beggar."
The same thought may have occurred to Lily; at any rate, when, four weeks later, Jacky's father came again; she didn't welcome him in quite her old, sweet, hospitable way; but Jacky welcomed him!... Jacky knew his mother as his slave; he showed her an absent-minded affection when he wanted to get anything out of her; but he knew Mr. Curtis as "The Man"--the man who "ordered him round," to be sure, but who gave him presents and who,--Jacky boasted to some of his gutter companions,--"could spit two feet farther than the p'leesman."
"Aw, how do you know?" the other boys scoffed.
Jacky, evading the little matter of evidence, said, haughtily, "I _know_."
When "The Man" declared that next fall Jacky was to go to school, _regularly_, and not according to his own sweet will, Jacky waited until he was alone with his mother to kick and scream and say he wouldn't. Lily slapped him, and said, "Mr. Curtis will give you a present if you're on time every morning!"
She told Maurice to what she had committed him: "You see, I'm bound to educate him, and make a gentleman of him, so he can have an automobile, and marry a society girl. No chippy is going to get Jacky--smoking cigarettes, and saying 'La! La!' to any man that comes along. I hate those cheap girls. Look at the paint on 'em. I don't see how they have the face to show themselves on the street! Well, _I_ can't make him prompt at school; but he'll be Johnny-on-the-spot if you say so. My soul and body, he'll do anything for you! He's saved up all his prayer money and bought a lot of chewing gum for you."