"When you were sent away, Joe Ellison, and turned over your daughter
to me with those orders about seeing that she was brought up as a
decent girl, I began to see the big chance I'd been waiting for. I
asked myself, What is the dearest thing in the world to Joe Ellison?
The answer was, this idea he'd got about his girl. I asked myself,
What is the biggest way I can get even with Joe Ellison? The answer
was, to make Joe Ellison believe all the time he's in stir that his
girl is growing up the way he wants her to be and yet to bring her up
the exact thing he didn't want her to be. And that's exactly what I
did!"
"You--did--such a thing?" breathed Joe Ellison, almost incredulous.
"That's exactly what I did!" Old Jimmie went on, gloatingly. "It was
easy. No one knew you had a daughter, so I passed her off as my own
baby by a marriage I'd not told any one about. I saw that she always
lived among crooks, looked at things the way crooks do, and grew up
with no other thought than to be a crook. I never had an idea of using
her myself, till she began to look like such a good performer this
last year; and then my idea, no matter what Barney Palmer may have
planned, was to use her only in a couple of stunts. My main idea
always was, when you came out with your grand idea of what your girl
had grown up to be, for you suddenly to see your girl, and know her as
your girl, and know her to be a crook.
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