Jim Plowden looked at the curate with an interest he had never felt before. He was moved by this earnestness, almost passion, that was in him. ‘The poor beggar must have a brother that’s gone to the bad,’ he said to himself. That it should be he himself about whom the curate was concerned, or that there was any reason why anybody should be so concerned for him, never entered into Jim’s head. ‘I see what you mean,’ he said, ‘but I couldn’t answer your question if you were to give me a fortune for it. They know fast enough. They see other men going to the dogs every day. I suppose that ought to be better than sermons or any other kind of missionary work, or what a parson could do. I’m sure I can’t tell you, or how you’re to get hold of them. It won’t be with any teetotal stuff, if I must say what I think.’ A shade of anger crossed the curate’s face, and he looked at Jim with a wondering gaze, which awoke that young man’s surprise in return. ‘What do you look at me like that for?’ he said, half irritated in his turn. ‘Like what? I beg your pardon. I didn’t mean anything--particular. I suppose I thought I saw the others, the men I want to get hold of, through you, or behind you,’ he said. This was not a speech which was very agreeable to Jim, who did not see any reason why he should be chosen as a type of the young man of whom the curate wanted to get hold. But Mr. Osborne here made a diversion by another reference to Jim’s suspended power of recitation or reading, and by entering with him into a discussion of what would be suitable for the occasion, which distracted Jim’s attention. Before they got to Winwick Jim had proposed to read something--unwillingly, yet not without a little gratification too.