' I began to cry, 'cause I had had a big
day, and I was shaking on my feet anyway. Then Peter said, 'Have you
figured it out to the end? Is it to be 'til they are of age, or forever?'
She just gripped tighter and said fast as words can come, 'I say make it
forever, and share and share alike. I'm willing if you are.' Peter, he
said, 'I'm willing. They'll pay their way any place. Forever, and share
and share alike, is my idea. Do you agree, Mickey?' 'Exactly what do you
mean?' I asked, and Peter told me it was making me and Lily both his, just
as far as the law could do it; we could go all the farther we wanted to
ourselves. He said it meant him getting the same for me and Lily as he did
for his own, and leaving us the same when he died. I told him he _needn't
do that_, if he'd just keep off the old Orphings' Home devil, that's had
me scared stiff all my days, I'd tend to _that_, so now me and Lily belong
to Peter; he's our _Pertectorate_."
"Mickey, why didn't you tell me?" asked Douglas. "Why didn't you want me
to adopt you?"
"Well so far as 'adopting' is concerned," said Mickey, "I ain't _crazy_
about it, with anybody.
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