“It's a little too much out of the way, you'll think, maybe, but it's just the dandy for hiding in. You cart keep the brat there, and nobody—”
“Me keep the brat?” interrupted Pinky, with a derisive laugh. “That's a good one! I see myself turned baby-tender! Ha! ha! that's funny!”
“What do you expect to do with the child after you steal it?” asked Pinky's friend.
“I don't intend to nurse it or have it about me.”
“What then?”
“Board if with some one who doesn't get drunk or buy policies.”
“You'll hunt for a long time.”
“Maybe, but I'll try. Anyhow, it can't be worse off than it is now. What I'm afraid of is that it will be out of its misery before we can get hold of it. The woman who is paid for keeping it at night doesn't give it any milk—just feeds it on bread soaked in water, and that is slow starvation. It's the way them that don't want to keep their babies get rid of them about here.”
“The game's up if the baby dies,” said Nell Peter, growing excited under this view of the case. “If it only gets bread soaked in water, it can't live. I've seen that done over and over again. They're starving a baby on bread and water now just over from my room, and it cries and frets and moans all the time it's awake, poor little wretch! I've been in hopes for a week that they'd give it an overdose of paregoric or something else.”
“We must fix it to-night in some way,” answered Pinky. “Where's the room you spoke of?”