in' starin' at an'
sulkin' there for?"

This last remark was addressed gruffly to Mrs Frog, who, during the
previous conversation, had seated herself on a low three-legged stool,
and, clasping her hands over her knees, gazed at the dirty blank walls
in blanker despair.

The poor woman realised the situation better than her drunken husband
did. As a bird-fancier he contributed little, almost nothing, to the
general fund on which this family subsisted. He was a huge, powerful
fellow, and had various methods of obtaining money--some obvious and
others mysterious--but nearly all his earnings went to the gin-palace,
for Ned was a man of might, and could stand an enormous quantity of
drink. Hetty, who worked, perhaps we should say slaved, for a firm
which paid her one shilling a week, could not manage to find food for
them all. Mrs Frog herself with her infant to care for, had found it
hard work at any time to earn a few pence, and now Bobby's active little
limbs were reduced to inaction, converting him into a consumer instead
of a producer. In short, the glaring fact that the family expenses
would be increased while the family income was diminished, stared Mrs
Frog as blankly in the face as she stared at the dirty blank wall.

And her case was worse, even, than people in better circumstances might
imagine, for the family lived so literally from hand to mouth that there
was no time even to think when a difficulty arose or disaster befell.
They rented their room from a man who styled it a furnished apartment,
in virtue of a rickety table, a broken chair, a worn-out sheet or two, a
dilapidated counterpane, four ragged blankets, and the infirm saucepan
before mentioned, besides a few articles of cracked or broken crockery.
For this accommodation the landlord charged ninepence per day, which sum
had to be paid _every night_ before the family was allowed to retire to
rest! In the event of failure to pay they would have been turned out
into the street at once, and the door padlocked. Thus the necessity for
a constant, though small, supply of cash became urgent, and the
consequent instability of "home" very depressing.

To preserve his goods from the pawnbroker, and prevent a moonlight
flitting, this landlord had printed on his sheets the words "stolen from
---" and on the blankets and counterpane were stamped the words "stop
thief!"

Mrs Frog made no reply to her husband's gruff question, which induced
the man to seize