"Saying is one thing, and paying is another. Where's the money?"

The sailor hesitated a moment, looked anew at the woman, came in,
unfolded five crisp pieces of paper, and threw them down upon the
tablecloth. They were Bank-of-England notes for five pounds. Upon the
face of this he clinked down the shillings severally--one, two, three,
four, five.

The sight of real money in full amount, in answer to a challenge for the
same till then deemed slightly hypothetical had a great effect upon
the spectators. Their eyes became riveted upon the faces of the chief
actors, and then upon the notes as they lay, weighted by the shillings,
on the table.

Up to this moment it could not positively have been asserted that the
man, in spite of his tantalizing declaration, was really in earnest.
The spectators had indeed taken the proceedings throughout as a piece of
mirthful irony carried to extremes; and had assumed that, being out
of work, he was, as a consequence, out of temper with the world, and
society, and his nearest kin. But with the demand and response of real
cash the jovial frivolity of the scene departed. A lurid colour
seemed to fill the tent, and change the aspect of all therein. The
mirth-wrinkles left the listeners' faces, and they waited with parting
lips.

"Now," said the woman, breaking the silence, so that her low dry voice
sounded quite loud, "before you go further, Michael, listen to me. If
you touch that money, I and this girl go with the man. Mind, it is a
joke no longer."

"A joke? Of course it is not a joke!" shouted her husband, his
resentment rising at her suggestion. "I take the money; the sailor takes
you. That's plain enough. It has been done elsewhere--and why not here?"

"'Tis quite on the understanding that the young woman is willing," said
the sailor blandly. "I wouldn't hurt her feelings for the world."

"Faith, nor I," said her husband. "But she is willing, provided she can
have the child. She said so only the other day when I talked o't!"

"That you swear?" said the sailor to her.

"I do," said she, after glancing at her husband's face and seeing no
repentance there.

"Very well, she shall have the child, and the bargain's complete," said
the trusser. He took the sailor's notes and deliberately folded them,
and put them with the shillings in a high remote pocket, with an air of
finality.

The sailor looked at the woman and smiled. "Come along!" he said kindly.
"The little one too--the