"I believe yer," she replied; "jest listen to That 'ere blessed babby, a-screamin' of itself into fits; oh! bother her for as ill-mannered a child as ever I came across."
Tom ran up the remainder of the stairs, and entered Billy's attic without knocking.
There he saw a sight which made him draw in his breath with a little start of surprise and terror; the baby was sitting up in bed and crying lustily, and Billy was lying with his back to her, quite motionless, and apparently deaf to her most piteous wails.
Billy's usual white face was flushed a fiery red, and his breathing, loud and labored, fell with solemn distinctness on Tom's ears.
Tom knew these signs at a glance; he had seen them so often in the fever hospital.
Shutting the door softly behind him, and first of all taking the baby in his arms and thrusting a sticky lollipop, which he happened to have in his waistcoat pocket, into her mouth:
"Be yer werry bad, Billy Andersen?" he said, stooping down over the sick boy.
"Our Father," replied Billy, raising his blue eyes and fixing them in a pathetic manner on Tom. "'Tis our Father I wants."
"Why, he were a bad'un," said Tom; "he runned away from yer, he did; I wouldn't be fretting about him, if I was you, Billy lad."
"'Tis the other one—'tis t'other one I means," said Billy in a weak gasping voice. "I has 'ad the words afore me all night long—our Father; tell us what it means, Tom, do."