CHAPTER III.
TOM JONES' TRICK.
The neighbors were full of suggestions to Billy at this crisis of his fate.
It was ascertained beyond all doubt that Mrs. Andersen would be six weeks, if not two months, away; and this being the case, the neighbors one and all declared roundly that there was nothing whatever for Sarah Ann but to become a workhouse baby. One of them would carry her to the house the very next morning, and of course she would be admitted without a moment's difficulty, and there would be an end of her.
Billy might manage to earn a precarious living by running messages, by opening cab-doors, and by the thousand-and-one things an active boy could undertake, and so he might eke out a livelihood till his mother came back; but there was no hope whatever for Sarah Ann—there was no loophole for her but the workhouse.
To these admonitions on the part of his friendly neighbors, Billy responded in a manner peculiar to himself. First of all, he raised two blue and very innocent eyes, and let them rest slowly and thoughtfully on each loquacious speaker's face; then he suddenly and without the slightest warning winked one of the said eyes in a manner that was so knowing as to be almost wicked, and then without the slightest word or comment he dashed into his attic and locked the door on himself and Sarah Ann.
"Sarah Ann, darling," he said, placing the baby on the floor and kneeling down a few paces from her, "will yer go to the workhouse, or will yer stay with yer h'own Billy?"
Sarah Ann's response to this was to wriggle as fast as possible up to her affectionate nurse, and rub her little dirty face against his equally dirty trousers.
"That's settled, then," said Billy; "yer has chosen, Sarah Ann, and yer ain't one as could ever abear contradictions, so we 'as got to see how we two can live."