"Eh?" he said, and then I told him that the doctor had been called and what he had said about fresh air.
"So that's it, is it?" he said. "Good! Just reminds me of something I want to say, so I'll introdooce the matter now, in a manner o' speaking. Last night I 'ad to go to Mile End for you, and here's Lizer out on a sim'lar arrand. If people 'ave got to be 'ospital nurses to a sick baiby they ought to be paid, mind ye. We're only pore, and it may be a sacred dooty walkin' in percession, but it ain't fillin'."
Choking with anger, I said:
"Put out your pipe, please."
"Ma'am to you!"
"Put it out this moment, sir, or I'll see if I can't find somebody to make you."
The bricklayer laughed, then pointed with the shank of his pipe to the two photographs over the mantelpiece, and said:
"See them? Them's me, with my dooks up. If any friend o' yourn as is interested in the baiby comes to lay a 'and on me I'll see if I've forgot 'ow to use 'em."
I felt the colour shuddering out of my cheeks, and putting baby into the cot I turned on the man and cried:
"You scoundrel! The doctor has told me what is the immediate cause of my baby's illness and your wife has confessed to giving overdoses of a drug at your direction. If you don't leave this house in one minute I'll go straight to the police-station and charge you with poisoning my child."