“Yes, I would if you would only leave your evil companions, and become true to your better nature.”
“No one ever spoke to me like that before, miss,” said Dodger, his expressive features showing that he was strongly moved. “You think I could be good if I tried hard, and grow up respectable?”
“I am sure you could,” said Florence, confidently.
There was something in this boy, young outlaw though he was, that moved her powerfully, and even fascinated her, though she hardly realized it. It was something more than a feeling of compassion for a wayward and misguided youth.
“I could if I was rich like you, and lived in a nice house, and ’sociated with swells. If you had a father like mine——”
“Is he a bad man?”
“Well, he don’t belong to the church. He keeps a gin mill, and has ever since I was a kid.”
“Have you always lived with him?”
“Yes, but not in New York.”
“Where then?”