"I'm afraid our Tilda'll get no good here," said the labourer, in a low tone, to his wife, as he glanced uneasily towards his daughter.
"Nonsense, you fool!" returned the woman. "You can't get no work—and we must starve if we don't do something. Our gal can keep us, if she will—and she must too. Sooner or later it will come to that with her—and as well now as ever."
The poor labourer sighed: he would have remained honest, and kept his wife and daughter so, if he could; but want and houseless wanderings in the cold street stared him in the face—and he resigned himself to the bitter destiny that was thus forced upon him and his family!
In the mean time Old Death had taken a seat near the fire, and was deep in a whispered conversation with Mutton-Face Sal.
"Where's Josh Pedler?" he asked.
"He'll be in shortly," was the answer. "He's only gone out to fetch something for his supper."
"And so Tim the Snammer is lumbered?" said Old Death.
"Yes: he's in Clerkenwell. But you'll get him off when he goes up again 'afore the beak on Saturday—won't you, old chap?—now, won't you?"
"I don't know—I don't know. He isn't one of my men: he never would give me a turn. His name doesn't appear against a number on my list."
"But he will give you all his business in future, if you'll get him off this time—just this time," said the girl coaxingly.