"That's all right, Mary," the County Council inspector said in a rough but genial voice. "We haven't come to make any trouble to-day. We know you do your best. It is not your fault."
"Thank you, sir," the woman answered, subsiding heavily once more upon her stool. "I have never done away with any children yet, and I am glad you know it. I've never been up before any beak yet, and I does my best. They comes to me when they've got the insurances on the kids, and I ses, 'No,' I ses, 'you take 'em where you know wot you wants will be done. You won't have far to go,' I ses, and so they takes 'em away. 'My bizness,' I ses, 'is open and aboveboard.' I looks arter the kids for a penny a day, and I gives 'm back to their mothers when they comes 'ome, feeding them meanwhile as well as I can."
Mary was standing horror-struck in the middle of the room. She turned to Inspector Brown.
"Oh," she said, "how awful! How terrible! How utterly awful!"
The inspector looked down at her with grave face.
"You may well say so, miss," he answered. "I am a married man myself, and it goes to my heart. But you must know that all this woman says is absolutely true. She is dying of dropsy, and she looks after these children for their mothers while they are at the match factories in Bethnal Green or making shirts in some Jew sweater's den. She is not what you may call a 'baby-farmer.' She is not one of those women who make a profession of killing children by starvation and cold in order that their parents may get the insurance money. As she goes, this woman is honest."
"But look, look!" Mary answered, pointing with quivering finger to the swarming things upon the mattresses.
"I know," the inspector answered, "but, miss, there are worse things than this that you could see in the neighbourhood."
Suddenly Mary's blood, which had been cooled and chilled by the awful spectacle, rose to boiling point in a single second. She felt sick, she said, wheeling round and turning to Fabian Rose—she felt sick that all these terrible things should be. "Why should such things be allowed?"