“‘Pon honour!”
“Well, then, I has a heart in my buzzom, and if so be I can do a good turn to the ‘oman wot I has loved and kep’ company with, why not?”
“Why not, indeed?” said Mr. R——. “And as we want to learn, not only what has become of Mrs. Joplin, but what she did with the child she carried off from ——, begin at the beginning and tell us all you know.”
Bill mused. “How much is there in the pus?”
“Eighteen sovereigns.”
“Make it twenty—you nod—twenty then? A bargain! Now I’ll go on right ahead. You see as how, some months arter we—that is, Peggy Joplin and self—left ——, I was put in quod in Lancaster jail; so I lost sight of the blowen. When I got out and came to Lunnun, it was a matter of seven year afore, all of a sudding, I came bang up agin her,—at the corner of Common Garden. ‘Why, Bill!’ says she. ‘Why, Peggy!’ says I; and we bussed each other like winky. ‘Shall us come together agin?’ says she. ‘Why, no,’ says I; ‘I has a wife wots a good ‘un, and gets her bread by setting up as a widder with seven small childern. By the by, Peg, what’s a come of your brat?’ for as you says, sir, Peg had a child put out to her to nurse. Lor’, how she cuffed it! ‘The brat!’ says she, laughing like mad, ‘oh, I got rid o’ that when you were in jail, Bill.’ ‘As how?’ says I. ‘Why, there was a woman begging agin St. Poll’s churchyard; so I purtended to see a friend at a distance: “‘Old the babby a moment,” says I, puffing and panting, “while I ketches my friend yonder.” So she ‘olds the brat, and I never sees it agin; and there’s an ind of the bother!’ ‘But won’t they ever ax for the child,—them as giv’ it you?’ ‘Oh, no,’ says Peg, ‘they left it too long for that, and all the tin was agone; and one mouth is hard enough to feed in these days,—let by other folks’ bantlings.’ ‘Well,’ says I, ‘where do you hang out? I’ll pop in, in a friendly way.’ So she tells me,—som’ere in Lambeth,—I forgets hexactly; and many’s the good piece of work we ha’ done togither.”
“And where is she now?” asked Mr. R——‘s companion.
“I doesn’t know purcisely, but I can com’ at her. You see, when my poor wife died, four year com’ Chris’mas, and left me with as fine a famuly, though I says it, as h-old King Georgy himself walked afore, with his gold-’eaded cane, on the terris at Vindsor,—all heights and all h-ages to the babby in arms (for the little ‘un there warn’t above a year old, and had been a brought up upon spoon-meat, with a dash o’ blueruin to make him slim and ginteel); as for the bigger ‘uns wot you don’t see, they be doin’ well in forin parts, Mr. R——!”
Mr. R. smiled significantly.
Bill resumed. “Where was I? Oh, when my wife died, I wanted sum ‘un to take care of the childern, so I takes Peg into the ‘ous. But Lor’! how she larrupped ‘em,—she has a cruel heart, has n’t she, Bob? Bob is a ‘cute child, Mr. R——. Just as I was a thinking of turning her out neck an’ crop, a gemman what lodges aloft, wot be a laryer, and wot had just saved my nick, Mr. R——, by proving a h-alibi, said, ‘That’s a tidy body, your Peg!’ (for you see he was often a wisiting here, an’ h-indeed, sin’ then, he has taken our third floor, No. 9); ‘I’ve been a speakin’ to her, and I find she has been a nuss to the sick. I has a frind wots a h-uncle that’s ill: can you spare her, Bill, to attind him?’ That I can,’ says I; ‘anything to obleedge.’ So Peg packs off, bag and baggidge.”