“Then you didn’t see the lady?” said she.
“No; I was out.”
“It’s a pity. She’s a angel, John. The way she sat with them poor childer would do you good to see. I told ’er you ’ad took them, and, bless you, ’er eyes filled with tears to think of a man doing it when you might let them go to the work’us. Not that I wouldn’t do it, John, if I ’adn’t six of my own and the mangle and not room to turn round. And Mrs Parkes was a-saying the childer would be welcome in ’er room, only the smells is that bad in ’er corner that there’s no living in it except for seasoned bodies. There’s my Polly, you know, John, is eight, and she would look after them now and again, when you’re busy. She’s a good child, is Polly, and can write on a slate beautiful.”
Jeffreys thanked her, and promised to come to an arrangement with Polly, and went on with his work.
In due time the claims of hunger created a diversion, and he and his infants—one on each knee—partook of a comfortable repast of bread and milk.
He had hard work to induce the baby, after it was over, to resume his slumbers. That young gentleman evidently had a vivid recollection of some one having walked about with him and sung him to sleep in the middle of the day, and he resented now being unceremoniously laid on his back and expected to slumber without persuasion.
Jeffreys had to take him up finally and pace the room for an hour, and about ten o’clock sat down to his interrupted work. Till midnight he laboured on; then, cold and wearied, he put out his little candle and lay himself beside the children on the bed.
He had scarcely done so when he became aware of a glare at the window, which brought him to his feet in an instant. It was a fire somewhere.
His first panic that it might be in the house was quickly relieved. It was not even in Storr Alley, but in one of the courts adjoining. He looked down from his window. The alley was silent and empty. No one there, evidently, had yet had an alarm.
Quickly putting on his boots, he hurried down, and made his way in the direction of the flames. From below they were still scarcely visible, and he concluded that the fire, wherever it was, must have broken out in a top storey. Driver’s Court, which backed onto Storr Alley, with which it was connected at the far end by a narrow passage, was an unknown land to Jeffreys. The Jews in Storr’s had no dealings with the Samaritans in Driver’s; for Storr Alley, poor as it might be, prided itself on being decent and hard-working, whereas Driver’s—you should have heard the stories told about it. It was a regular thieves’ college. A stranger who chanced into Driver’s with a watch-chain upon him, or a chink of money in his pocket, or even a good coat on his back, might as soon think of coming out by the way he had entered as of flying. There were ugly stories of murders and mysteries under those dark staircases, and even the police drew the line at Driver’s Court, and gave it the go-by.