At last the woman’s patience was rewarded by the sight of a burly little elderly man, whose face of benignity was unmistakably genuine. Remembering the previous man’s reference to the baby, she covered it up carefully, and held it more like a bundle.
Stepping up to the newcomer at once, she put the same question as to name, and also asked if he lived in Russell Square.
“No, my good woman,” replied the burly little man, with a look of mingled surprise and pity, “my name is not Thompson. It is Twitter—Samuel Twitter, of Twitter, Slime and—, but,” he added, checking himself, under a sudden and rare impulse of prudence, “why do you ask my name and address?”
The woman gave an almost hysterical laugh at having been so successful in her somewhat clumsy scheme, and, without uttering another word, darted down the alley. She passed rapidly round by a back way to another point of the same street she had left—well ahead of the spot where she had stood so long and so patiently that night. Here she suddenly uncovered the baby’s face and kissed it passionately for a few moments. Then, wrapping it in the ragged shawl, with its little head out, she laid it on the middle of the footpath full in the light of a lamp, and retired to await the result.
When the woman rushed away, as above related, Mr Samuel Twitter stood for some minutes rooted to the spot, lost in amazement. He was found in that condition by the returning policeman.
“Constable,” said he, cocking his hat to one side the better to scratch his bald head, “there are strange people in this region.”
“Indeed there are, sir.”
“Yes, but I mean very strange people.”
“Well, sir, if you insist on it, I won’t deny that some of them are very strange.”
“Yes, well—good-night, constable,” said Mr Twitter, moving slowly forward in a mystified state of mind, while the guardian of the night continued his rounds, thinking to himself that he had just parted from one of the very strangest of the people.