“Your own?”
“You bet, ’taint no right in the world,” said Jim; “but long as ’tis here, and I’m to blame for it, I’m going to take it along.”
Tom Cooper put out his hand and grasped the other’s hand in his.
“You’re a dandy,” cried he; “I’m glad to know you. Hurry and get the kid, or we may be seen.”
“Don’t utter a whisper, and I’ll be down in a minute. The babe is just above us here. Lucky I got it to-night, or there would be no chance to-morrow. I heard they were going to move it to another building.”
“Hurry then, Jim,” again said the sailor.
Jim could not but wonder how he was going to explain the drowning of the child, and if the sailor would take it like he did and think that as long as his freedom depended upon it it was all right. Jim hated to do it, but he had promised, and then, too, the kid was so little.
He hurried up the steps, and looked cautiously about.
There was the mother lying as if dead upon the bed, and opposite her was the child.
With a sly motion of his hand he slipped a saturated handkerchief under the child’s nose, and she slumbered on peacefully.