“Do please not make it scream so,” said Bertie. “That is what you call the baby, is it not?”
“Iss,” said the boy Dick, sullenly. “This here’s baby, cuss him! and what bisness be he of yourn?”
For interference without coppers to follow was a barren intruder that he was disposed to resent.
“I thought I could amuse him,” said Bertie, timidly. “I told your sister I would.”
Dick roared into loud guffaws.
“Baby’d kick you into middle o’ next week, you poor little puny spindle-shanks!” said this rude boy; and Bertie felt that he was very rude, though he had no idea what was meant by spindle-shanks.
The other boy, who was lying on his stomach,—a sadly empty little stomach,—here reversed his position and stared up at Bertie.
“I think you’re a kind little gemman,” he said, “and Dick’s cross ’cos he’s broke his legs, and we’ve had no vittles since yesternoon, and only a sup o’ tea Peg made afore she went, and mother’s main bad, that she be.”
And tears rolled down this gentler little lad’s dirty cheeks.
“Oh, dear, what shall I do?” said Bertie, with a sigh: if he had only had the money and the watch that had fallen into the sea! He looked round him and felt very sick; it was all so dirty, so dirty!—and he had never seen dirt before; and the place smelt very close and sour, and the children’s clothes were mere rags, and the woman was all skin and bone, on her wretched straw bed; and the unhappy baby was screaming loudly enough to be heard right across the sea to the French coast.