"'Tain't likely, Ally. If he'd a' known that you and a poor beggar like me was friends, it wouldn't have done you much good. He knows pretty well what sort of life I've led."
"There are good and bad in the world, dear Grif. It is not your fault that your life has not been cast in pleasant places, nor amongst good people."
"They're a bad lot I've been amongst. That's the reason I'm so bad, I s'pose."
"Ah, dear Grif," said Alice tenderly; "if all were like you--"
"They'd be precious queer, Ally, if they was all like me. It's a good job for them that isn't! I oughtn't to have been born, that's where it is! I wish I never had been. I wouldn't if I could have helped it."
"Hush! you must not speak like that."
"I can't help it, Ally," said the boy fretfully. "If they'd come to me and said, 'Now, will you be born or not?' I should have said, 'No, I won't!'"
"It is by God's will that we are here," said Alice, with tearful eyes. "There is a better world than this."
"Is there, Ally?" asked Grif, eagerly. "Is there? The preacher cove said there was, but I didn't believe him, he spoke so hard-like. It didn't sound good the way he said it. It set me agin it."
"Yes, dear Grif, another world where sin and sorrow are not known."