!'
'But won't they ever ax for the child,--them as giv' it you?' 'Oh, no,'
says Peg, 'they left it too long for that, and all the tin was agone;
and one mouth is hard enough to feed in these days,--let by other folks'
bantlings.' 'Well,' says I, 'where do you hang out? I'll pop in, in
a friendly way.' So she tells me,--som'ere in Lambeth,--I forgets
hexactly; and many's the good piece of work we ha' done togither."

"And where is she now?" asked Mr. R----'s companion.

"I doesn't know purcisely, but I can com' at her. You see, when my poor
wife died, four year com' Chris'mas, and left me with as fine a famuly,
though I says it, as h-old King Georgy himself walked afore, with his
gold-'eaded cane, on the terris at Vindsor,--all heights and all h-ages
to the babby in arms (for the little 'un there warn't above a year old,
and had been a brought up upon spoon-meat, with a dash o' blueruin to
make him slim and ginteel); as for the bigger 'uns wot you don't see,
they be doin' well in forin parts, Mr. R----!"

Mr. R. smiled significantly.

Bill resumed. "Where was I? Oh, when my wife died, I wanted sum 'un to
take care of the childern, so I takes Peg into the 'ous. But Lor'! how
she larrupped 'em,--she has a cruel heart, has n't she, Bob? Bob is a
'cute child, Mr. R----. Just as I was a thinking of turning her out neck
an' crop, a gemman what lodges aloft, wot be a laryer, and wot had just
saved my nick, Mr. R----, by proving a h-alibi, said, 'That's a
tidy body, your Peg!' (for you see he was often a wisiting here, an'
h-indeed, sin' then, he has taken our third floor, No. 9); 'I've been
a speakin' to her, and I find she has been a nuss to the sick. I has
a frind wots a h-uncle that's ill: can you spare her, Bill, to attind
him?' That I can,' says I; 'anything to obleedge.' So Peg packs off, bag
and baggidge."

"And what was the sick gentleman's name?" asked Mr. R----'s companion.

"It was one Mr. Warney,--a painter, wot lived at Clap'am. Since thin
I've lost sight of Peg; for we had 'igh words about the childern, and
she was a spiteful 'oman. But you can larn where she be at Mr. Warney's,
if so be he's still above ground."

"And did this woman still go by the name of Joplin?"

Bill grinned: "She warn't such a spooney as that,--that name was in your
black books too much, Mr. R----, for a 'spectable nuss for sick bodies;
no, she was then called Martha Skeggs, what was her own mother's name
afore marriage. Anything mo