“Jesus wants me for a sunbeam”

“Jesus wants me for a sunbeam” is recalled as the line Rupert used to insult Polly Wycherley, a deliberately hurtful episode that Shirley-Ann Miller and Miss Chilmark revisit while discussing the evening when Milo Motion found the Penny Black in his copy of The Hollow Man. The phrase’s significance lies in the contrast the conversation draws: it bears on Rupert’s capacity for cruelty, but not on Sid’s conduct that night.

Recollection and Context

Shirley-Ann Miller places the insult before she read the Stanley Ellin story and before Milo Motion opened his copy of The Hollow Man. When she says that Rupert insulted Polly Wycherley, Miss Chilmark reacts as if she has tasted something sour. Shirley-Ann supplies the remembered line, “Jesus wants me for a sun-beam”; Shirley-Ann tries to suppress a smile, while Miss Chilmark does not dispute that Rupert was the person behind it.

Cruelty, Not Evidence About Sid

Miss Chilmark says the insult was meant to wound, and that it did. She regards it as proof of how low Rupert would sink. Shirley-Ann, however, draws a boundary around what the episode can establish: it had nothing to do with Sid. The exchange therefore distinguishes a revealing judgment of Rupert’s character from information relevant to the discussion of Sid’s actions and words.

Place in the Later Discussion

The recollection surfaces as Shirley-Ann tries to return the conversation to Sid and the events after Milo discovered the stamp. At the end of that evening, the group debated whether Milo should return the Penny Black to the Postal Museum quietly or involve the police. Shirley-Ann recalls that Sid said he could stay quiet, while she and Polly Wycherley insisted Milo had a duty to report the discovery. Against that immediate question, the hymn line remains a sharp but separate memory: it illustrates Rupert’s capacity to hurt someone, not what Sid did.