one time when he had been quite a baby Mr. Jack had been always there.
Bim explained, to any one who cared to listen, that Mr. Jack belonged to
all the Other Time which he was now in very serious danger of
forgetting, and when, at that point, he was asked with condescending
indulgence, "I suppose you mean fairies, dear!" he always shook his head
scornfully and said he meant nothing of the kind, Mr. Jack was as real
as mother, and, indeed, a great deal "realer," because Mrs. Rochester
was, in the course of her energetic career, able to devote only
"whirlwind" visits to her "dear, darling" children.

When the afternoon was spent in the gardens in the middle of the Square,
Bim would detach himself from his family and would be found absorbed in
some business of his own which he generally described as "waiting for
Mr. Jack."

"Not the sort of child," said Miss Agg, who had strong views about
children being educated according to practical and common-sense ideas,
"not the sort of child that one would expect nonsense from." It may be
quite safely asserted that never, in her very earliest years, had Miss
Agg been guilty of any nonsense of the sort.

But it was not Miss Agg's contempt for his experiences that worried Bim.
He always regarded that lady with an amused indifference. "She _bothers_
so," he said once to Lucy. "Do you think she's happy with us, Lucy?"

"P'r'aps. I'm sure it doesn't matter."

"I suppose she'd go away if she wasn't," he concluded, and thought no
more about her.