“It wasn’t a he, father, it was a she.”
“Well, no matter, if I on’y had my fingers on her windpipe I’d squeeze it summat.”
“If you did I’d bang your nose! She didn’t go for to do it a-purpose, you old grampus,” retorted Bobby, intending the remark to be taken as a gentle yet affectionate reproof. “A doctor’s bin an’ set my leg,” continued the boy, “an’ made it as stiff as a poker wi’ what ’e calls splints. He says I won’t be able to go about for ever so many weeks.”
“An’ who’s to feed you, I wonder, doorin’ them weeks? An’ who sent for the doctor? Was it him as supplied the fire an’ candle to-night?”
“No, father, it was me,” answered Hetty, who was engaged in stirring something in a small saucepan, the loose handle of which was attached to its battered body by only one rivet; the other rivet had given way on an occasion when Ned Frog sent it flying through the doorway after his retreating wife. “You see I was paid my wages to-night, so I could afford it, as well as to buy some coal and a candle, for the doctor said Bobby must be kept warm.”
“Afford it!” exclaimed Ned, in rising wrath, “how can ’ee say you can afford it w’en I ’aven’t had enough grog to half screw me, an’ not a brown left. Did the doctor ask a fee?”
“No, father, I offered him one, but he wouldn’t take it.”
“Ah—very good on ’im! I wonder them fellows has the cheek to ask fees for on’y givin’ advice. W’y, I’d give advice myself all day long at a penny an hour, an’ think myself well off too if I got that—better off than them as got the advice anyhow. What are you sittin’ starin’ at an’ sulkin’ there for?”
This last remark was addressed gruffly to Mrs Frog, who, during the previous conversation, had seated herself on a low three-legged stool, and, clasping her hands over her knees, gazed at the dirty blank walls in blanker despair.
The poor woman realised the situation better than her drunken husband did. As a bird-fancier he contributed little, almost nothing, to the general fund on which this family subsisted. He was a huge, powerful fellow, and had various methods of obtaining money—some obvious and others mysterious—but nearly all his earnings went to the gin-palace, for Ned was a man of might, and could stand an enormous quantity of drink. Hetty, who worked, perhaps we should say slaved, for a firm which paid her one shilling a week, could not manage to find food for them all. Mrs Frog herself with her infant to care for, had found it hard work at any time to earn a few pence, and now Bobby’s active little limbs were reduced to inaction, converting him into a consumer instead of a producer. In short, the glaring fact that the family expenses would be increased while the family income was diminished, stared Mrs Frog as blankly in the face as she stared at the dirty blank wall.