“No ’m. You mean Malcolm. I t’ought I hadn’t oughta keep him outa Sunday School, like.”
“You mustn’t run your words together. . . . Of course; quite right. . . . Say that sentence again, slowly.”
Joe obeyed very willingly. This was useful.
“Don’t you go to Sunday School, Joe?” asked Mrs. Boardman.
“I’ll tell you the troot . . . truth, ’m, I ain’t got the face. I’m so ignorant, they’d put me amongst the littlest kids.”
“But if Malcolm is only nine, you must have been at least six or seven when your mother died. Didn’t she give you any religious instruction?”
“Yes’m,” said Joe vaguely. “. . . She was a good woman.”
“Do you remember her clearly?”
“Yes’m, I kin see her now!”
Miss Gittings exchanged a look with her sister. “But Fanny, that is psychic!” she said, opening her eyes.