The hostess looked from the drinker to the seaman and said, "Are you standing tick for they?"
"I'll pay for their drink and they'll help me along the road with the baby," said the sailor.
The landlady shrugged her shoulders contemptuously, and asked, "If
I may be so bold, what's her name?"
"What's whose name?"
"The baby's."
"Ha'n't got none," said the seaman.
"What, ain't she been christened yet?"
"No, I reckon not," answered the father. Then he proceeded to explain. "You see my poor wife she was down in lodgings and hadn't no friends nor relations no'ther nigh her, and she took ill and never got over the birth of this here babe, and so it couldn't be done. But the kid's aunt'll see to all that right enough when I've got her there."
"What! you're trapsing about the country hugging a babe along under your arm and slung over your shoulder and feeding her o' blackberries and chucking her in among fly poison, and not a Christian yet! My! What a world it is!".
"All in good time, missus."