“Poor child!” sighed our Reporter. “It is easy to see what you are growing up into!”
He whispered in her ear, “Wake up, little one! I’ve knocked loud enough to raise the dead, and no one answers. Wake up!”
As she made no movement, he shook her, gently and with tenderness, whereupon she murmured some words, but so indistinctly that he did not gather their import.
“Eh?” he said, placing his ear to her lips. “What did you say?”
“Two boxes a penny,” she murmured. “Please buy a box!—starving mother at ’ome!”
A woman shuffled along the street, and stopped before the house, with the supper beer in a brown jug. As she opened the door with the latch-key, she glanced at the sleeping child.
“Why, it’s little Fanny!” she cried.
“Who asked me,” added our Reporter, “to pull the blue bell, and knock five times?”
“Yes,” observed the woman. “Third-floor back.”