declaration at Bow Street--a weekly allowance. "Woman!" I said, "what,
in heaven's name, do you mean by babba?"

"Dee little babb; it is so pretty--so like him papa."

"And whose baby is it? for I suppose it's a baby you mean, by your
chatter about a babb."

"Your's. Oh! you will so lubb it."

"Mine? you detestable impostor, I never had such a thing in all my
life."

"And here it is--oh, dee pretty dear!"

And at that moment, another woman, dressed in the same outlandish style
as herself, brought up a little round parcel, that looked like a bundle
of clothes, and, before I had time to say a word, or shut the door, or
fly, placed it in my arms; and then both the women showed their
glistening teeth, stretching from ear to ear, and screamed out in
chorus, "You vill so lubb dee babba--it is such a pretty dear!"

I stood in a state of stupefaction for some time, but the dark-visaged
visitors by no means shared my inactivity; they ran, and screamed, and
bustled; trotted down stairs, jumped up again, and filled the whole
passage; then the drawing-room; then the little bedroom behind it, with
trunks, and bags, and band-boxes, and bird-cages full of parrots, and
cloaks, and shawls; till at last, when I started from my trance--in
doing which, nearly let the baby fall--I found my whole house taken
possession of, and the two women apparently as much at home as if they
had lived with me twenty years.

I unrolled the shawls and things from the baby's face. It was an infant
about a year old, and opened its eyes as I was looking at it, and looked
so wisely and sagaciously at me in return, that I could almost believe
it knew as much of the proceeding as I did--and this it might very
easily have done, without being a miracle of premature information, for
I had not the remotest conception of what the whole thing was about. So
I laid the child on the sofa, and went to the bell to ring for a
policeman.

"Oh, don't ring him bell, ve are so comfitable here!" said one of the
women. "Yesha vill go home 'gain, and I vill habb little bed in t'oder
room, and vill sleep vid dee babb--so nice!"

"Oh, you will--will you? We'll see about that," I answered, astonished
at the woman's impudence. "I will get you and your little lump of
Newcastle"--this was an allusion to her colour--"turned out into the
street."

"Oh, Massa Moggan vill soon be here! Him wrote letter a veek since; but
him vill come to-day."

"Oh!"----

So I did not pull