Mr. Tipps, the milkman, came to me yesterday with it all,"
said Luclarion. "He's a good soul, Tipps; as clever as ever was. He
was just in on his early rounds, at four o'clock in the morning,--an
awful blustering, cold night, night before last was,--and he was
coming by Graves Alley, when he heard a queer kind of crazy howling
down there out of sight. He wouldn't have minded it, I suppose, for
there's always drunken noise enough about in those places, but it
was a woman's voice, and a baby's crying was mixed up with it. So he
just flung his reins down over his horse's back, and jumped off his
wagon, and ran down. It was this girl,--Mary Moxall her name is, and
Mocks-all it ought to be, sure enough, to finish up after that pure,
blessed name so many of these miserables have got christened with;
and she was holding the child by the heels, head down, swinging it
back and for'ard, as you'd let a gold ring swing on a hair in a
tumbler, to try your fortune by, waiting till it would hit and ring.

"It was all but striking the brick walls each side, and she was
muttering and howling like a young she-devil over it, her eyes all
crazy and wild, and her hair hanging down her shoulders. Tipps flew
and grabbed the baby, and then she turned and clawed him like a
tiger-cat. But he's a strong man, and cool; he held the child back
with one hand, and with the other he got hold of one of her wrists
and gave it a grip,--just twist enough to make the other hand come
after his; and then he caught them both. She spit and kicked; it was
all she could do; she was just a mad thing. She lost her balance, of
course, and went down; he put his foot on her chest, just enough to
show her he could master her; and then she went from howling to
crying. 'Finish me, and I wouldn't care!' she said; and then lay
still, all in a heap, moaning. 'I won't hurt ye,' says Tipps. 'I
never hurt a woman yet, soul nor body. What was ye goin' to do with
this 'ere little baby?' 'I was goin' to send it out of the hell it's
born into,' she said, with an awful hate in the sound of her voice.
'Goin' to _kill_ it! You wouldn't ha' done that?' 'Yes, I would. I'd
'a done it, if I was hanged for it the next minute. Isn't it my
business that ever it was here?'

"'Now look here!' says Tipps. 'You're calmed down a little. If
you'll stay calm, and come with me, I'll take you to a safe place.
If you don't, I'll call a policeman, and you'll go to the lock-up.
Which'll ye have?' 'Yo