BY MARRIOTT WATSON.
THE BABY.
I THINK I had forgotten that it was Bank Holiday when I set out to visit a friend in Norwood, but I was very speedily brought to a realisation of the fact. The streets of the town proper were bare as a wilderness that August afternoon, and so too were the trains that crept in a Sunday mood, and with a Sabbath solemnity, southwards. The day had discharged its holiday-makers, and the evening had not yet received them. They were safe in innumerable places sacred to their kind, beating time to their joyous abandonment. Among the chief of their temples was the Crystal Palace. That was the thought that struck me as I came out on Sydenham Hill for my return journey. Has any one ever witnessed Bank Holiday at the Palace? I had not, and I was tempted to improve my knowledge. I turned into the gates, and entered.
Rain was falling in a dismal drizzle, and this had driven indoors the bulk of that vast multitude. Heaven knows what figures they reached, but they were in the papers next day. The steam of wet clothes, the curious and unpleasing odour of hot bodies, dancing in perpetual tumult, pervaded the great spaces. The building thundered with that great concourse, with their voices, their laughter, their jests, and their dancing. I almost regretted the experiment; but the fireworks were over, it was late, and I should soon be gone. After rambling through the crowd and visiting many absurd shows, I sat down at a small table and ordered some refreshment. Apparently I must drink beer, if I was to be in the fashion; for opposite me sat a man, his wife and a baby, imbibing from pint pots. The baby was not, but had succumbed to sleep and lay clutching at its mother’s buttons. The couple were young and good-looking—the man, as I judged, of the artisan class, and the woman prinked, pretty, and bridling. They had lost each other in the crush, and were shrieking with laughter at the adventure.
“Just as old Ned got to the bottom,” said he, “his feet give way and down ‘e goes, with a reg’lar clump you could ‘a ‘eard ‘alf a mile away. ‘What ‘o!’ says I, and then the rush come. The girl just was crowded right up agen me. ‘If you ain’t careful, miss,’ says I, ‘you’ll lose your ‘at,’ for it was bobbin’ about like anythink. ‘I don’t care,’ says she, ‘s’ long as I don’t lose my feet,’ and then she cries out, They’re pressin’ me flat. ‘Elp!’ she says. And then she come up plump against me, just as it might be you and me.”
“How d’you mean?—you and me?” inquired the woman, ceasing to laugh.
He gave an embarrassed but delighted chuckle. “Well, what do you think?” he said jocularly. “Reg’lar lost ‘er balance and was freezed right on to me, agen my face.”
The woman shifted the baby on her arm and tapped with her heels.
“Let’s ‘ave another,” suggested her husband, and called the waiter.
“I’m waitin’ to hear what happened,” said the woman, after a pause, in what appeared to me a significant voice.
“Oh!” said he indifferently, “I dunno’. We were just reg’larly like sardines.”
“What about ‘er face?” asked the woman sharply.
“Look ‘ere, Lily, what are you gettin’ at?” inquired the man with asperity. “I tell you I couldn’t help it, nor could she. There we was——”
“You’ve said that before,” she interrupted sarcastically.
“Well, I say it again,” he said defiantly. “I’ll say it as many times as I like, shan’t I?” and he drank off his glass at a draught. It seemed to give him new courage. “If ‘er cheek did lay against mine, I couldn’t ‘elp it—no, nor wouldn’t if I could,” he added still more defiantly.
The woman said nothing, but looked away, and in the act her angry eyes caught mine. Whether she was startled to find an audience or whether it was her movement I do not know, but a baby’s comforter (I think it is called) dropped to the floor, and I stooped and picked it up. She thanked me, smiling, and continued to smile for some time. The man had called in the waiter, and as the overworked wretch did not at once appear, had risen in an evident huff to find him.
“Nice day it’s been,” said the girl.
“Very nice,” I agreed, politely.
“Pity it’s raining,” she added.
I agreed again.
She smiled pleasantly, and was still smiling when her husband returned. It was obvious we had been exchanging civilities, but that was no excuse for his frown. He frowned at me, and addressed his wife, frowning at her.
“Look ‘ere, we’d better be goin’.”
She rose and smiled a good-evening at me, and after a while I also rose. It was time for me to catch a train.
I was not perfectly acquainted with the latent possibilities of the railways that serve that part of London. When I reached the platform it was a mass of struggling human figures. I ruined a hat and a fairly good temper in losing three trains, one after the other; but at last I fought my way into a compartment, and squeezed myself into a seat. As I did so, and just as the train was moving, a bundle was thrust in and fell upon me. It recovered itself, and, removing itself from my knees, discovered to me the girl and the baby. She glanced round the compartment, and finally recognised me with a frank smile.
“I lost ‘im,” she said in explanation. “‘E lost me, and now I’ve lost ‘im,”
This seemed to her to make things equal in some mysterious way, and she settled into the seat I offered her quite comfortably. The attention I had paid her she seemed to think demanded a return, and that she proceeded to repay in conversation. It was difficult to talk, partly from the sonorous rush of the train, but mainly by reason of our fellow-passengers, who were carrying the gaiety of the Palace into their homeward journey. They sang songs, and wagged concertinas, and they cracked broad jests, and slapped each other and laughed. The carriage reeked, for the rain was descending heavily and the windows were shut. Presently we stopped, and lurched forward and stopped again. It was quite dark, but a lamp in the station flared on us, and the door was opened. Some one got out, and I sat down in his seat, which was next to the girl and the baby. She had put her face to the window and looked out, and that, I suppose, did it. At all events, a man entered and addressed her hilariously, and from his staccato titter I recognised him.
“Been lookin’ out for you all along, old girl,” he said. “Where’d you get to? I ‘adn’t bin a moment ‘fore you slipped me. Tell you what: I seen the girl again, the one what was in the Palace—you know. She come along” Here he turned about, and his eye fell on me.
I somehow felt guilty.
He ceased, his expression changed, and he said roughly, “What yer doing here?”
I did not at first perceive that the question was not addressed to me but to his wife. The glare was certainly directed at me. The girl laughed heartily, and, as if perceiving in the situation something peculiarly stimulating and amusing, giggled at me.
“Look ‘ere, what are you doin’ ‘ere?” demanded the man again, with portentous severity.
“If you are addressing me,” said the young woman, with asperity, “I’m travelling home in a second-class carriage—that’s what I’m doing.”
The sarcasm was thrown away on the man. “I’d just like to know ‘ow you come ‘ere,” he said with emphasis, and ominously regarding me.
This time I took the question as addressed to myself. “I came,” said I mildly, “from the Palace, if you are at all curious, and I assure you I shall be delighted to get home.”
“Yes, I seen you there,” said he bitterly, and paying no attention to the latter and perhaps more reassuring part of my statement. “Yes, I seen you there,” he repeated defiantly. For all his defiance of tone, it was clear he was in a state of indecision. He turned to his young wife with a perplexed frown, but she ostentatiously stared out of the window. Finally he began to hum an air atrociously out of tune, with an obvious display of indifference.
The tune did not much matter in the general hubbub of the carriage, and merely added an extra buzz to the continuous uproar. It was the whiskey bottle and the peppermints that finally upset me. I had no intention in the world of moving, but having had to pretend once to take a swig, as he called it, from a tipsy man’s somewhat dirty bottle, I rose in rebellion against peppermints. Every one was eating peppermints (or it may have been bulls’-eyes), and if there is one thing I abominate it is the smell of peppermints. I stood it as long as I could, but at last, when the tipsy man plunged upon me once more, with an eye that wavered yet was full of determination, I got up and fled. We had stopped at a station, but Heaven alone knew what. I am ready to swear that no one in the carriage did. As I alighted I saw the sullen husband drop into the seat next to his wife which I had deserted, and congratulated myself on a kindly, tactful act.
I managed to find not a seat but standing room in another carriage, into which I was hilariously welcomed. To say the truth, I was afraid of more peppermints and whiskey, and as the windows were closed here also, and a moist heat arose from fifteen human bodies, I resolved to go. I got out at Clapham Junction, with the intention of abandoning to the delirium of the holiday makers the whole railway service, and of securing a cab for the rest of my journey.
The catacombs of Clapham Junction are well known to all Londoners. I had descended into the depths by one of the numerous stairways, when under a flaming lamp, with a somewhat anxious and bewildered look upon her face, I descried the girl with the baby. I do not know what devilment made me stop. Or perhaps it was sheer kindness of heart—the angelic impulse of the moment that inspires poor human nature. At any rate, I came to a pause in front of her.
“We meet again, then?” said I, with feeble jocularity.
She recognised me; her face beamed; she hitched the baby closer to her, and poured forth as though I had been an intimate friend. Indeed, I felt by this time as though I had known her for several years,
“I lost ‘im agen,” she said, with a little embarrassed laugh. “He’s that dreadful in losing his way.”
“He has no excuse for losing so pretty a wife,” said I, stupidly gallant.
She took on a self-conscious, distant air, and stared industriously at the flow of people in the passage. “I’m sure I dunno where he’s got to,” she declared.
I have no doubt I should have given her some civil goodbye and passed on, but I didn’t. I remembered the sour looks of the man, and was moved by an evil spirit.
“If I were you,” I said, “‘I would just leave him and go off home myself.”
“Well, I wouldn’t mind,” she answered cheerfully; “only I hav’n’t got any money. He’s got the tickets.”
“Oh, come,” I said, “that is easily remedied. Teach him a lesson, not to keep a pretty girl waiting. Where are you for?”
She gave me an address in Shepherd’s Bush.
“Then,” I said, “this is your platform. That’s my way too—so let us join forces.”
She looked at me rather doubtfully, but I suppose my respectable maturity made an impression on her. “It would serve him right,” she said, and laughed quite archly.
I had no remorse, recalling Orson, so I clinched the matter. “Come along, then,” I said; “I believe we’re just in time for a train.”
She turned passively, and we went up the stairs. There was a certain degree of reluctance visible in her now, but after all there was no time to hesitate. The train was in and the platform bustled. We found seats, settled into them, and were off. As the train moved the girl seemed to lose her diffidence all of a sudden. She was committed to the venture, and behaved like a philosopher. I say like a philosopher, but that is hardly the word. She developed her talent for conversation, and bridled. The philosopher does not bridle. There was never yet a woman who had not the desire for admiration, and, free of her mate, this one expanded in the atmosphere of civil compliments. It did no harm. She was pretty, and I told her so quite indirectly, but in a way she was woman enough to understand. She smiled, and we made (I am sure) a good-looking couple.
The way thus beguiled, we paid little heed to the stations, and suddenly she rose with a start and peered out.
“This is mine,” said she, and fumbled at the handle of the door.
I opened it for her. The night was black and the miserable wooden platform shone with rain.
“Take care,” I enjoined: “it is very slippery.” She hesitated, and put out a timid foot. “Let me have the baby,” I said, and took the sleeping infant. The girl stepped out upon the platform.
I suppose on Bank Holiday nights there is a certain inevitable strain on the railway servants. They have much to endure, and are no doubt dreadfully badgered. Perhaps we had delayed too long. At any rate the guard was clearly in a hurry, and a porter banged the door in my face. At the same time I heard a cry from the girl on the platform.
“It isn’t this station—it’s the next.”
I strove to open the door, but was hampered with the baby. Moreover, as luck had it, the coat of the passenger who sat by the door had been jammed in it. We both wrestled with the handle in vain. The guard whistled. Lily’s clamour from without assailed the sky. But the effort was hopeless—the train lurched on; and there was I with the baby.
I got a certain amount of sympathy from the passengers, who were unanimous in taking me for Lily’s husband and the father of the baby.
“It’s all them porters,” observed a stout lady in a friendly way. “She’ll come on next train,” and then turned her attention to the infant, and was pleased to pronounce it handsome. I had already committed myself to a statement as to its sex, which I was not in a position to verify, before the full force of the dilemma was borne in upon me. I might wait at the next station until Lily arrived to claim her offspring; but then it was not so certain that Lily would arrive at the station, for I now recalled that I had the tickets. Lily might, therefore, have to walk. Again, I might possibly find Lily’s home and leave my charge there; but I had listened carelessly, and had very grave doubts if I had the address aright. There appeared to be embarrassments in all directions. But my first duty, as to which there could be no doubt, was to alight, which I did in safety, with the assistance of a friendly neighbour. It was really not until the train steamed off, leaving me in the cold rain of the open platform alone—or rather with the baby—that my heart began to sink.
Was I to wait for Lily? On the whole, this seemed dangerous, and therefore I set out on an expedition to find the baby’s home.
I had admired the extraordinary placidity of the infant on the various occasions on which I had encountered the family that evening. It had slumbered passively through the uproar of the Palace; laughter and songs had not wakened it in the train; and it had meekly endured the bustling and the constant displacement of its form necessitated by maternal movements. But now that the noise had faded and peace reigned in the streets, the perverse creature stretched itself, yawned, opened its eyes and began to cry. This was of itself sufficiently annoying; added to which I found it no easy job to hold an open umbrella and a baby at the same time. The crying distracted me, for I am not used to children, and I feared that something might be the matter with it. This seemed an additional reason for making haste to find the house, and I hurried on. The crying also attracted sympathetic attention from several women I encountered in my quest. One, whom I had stopped in despair to inquire the whereabouts of the road in which I hoped Lily lived, was good enough to comment on the situation.
“You really didn’t ought to be left with the baby,” she declared kindly.
I had an impulse to confide in her. “Well, you see,” I began, “it’s Bank Holiday, and——”
But her brisk imagination had taken fire.
“Oh, it’s that way, is it? Well, your wife ought to be ashamed of herself,” she declared with indignation, “letting a respectable man like you——”
I wondered what she thought my wife had done. What do women do on Bank Holidays? Possibly, I reflected, as I hurried on, she imagined that Lily had “taken too much.” The phrase arrested me by the timely association of ideas. It was a public-house I wanted. I should learn there where Canonbury Road was. A handsome palace of gin glowed through the thin rain across the way, and the wet pavements shone under the flaring lights. I entered the saloon bar with baby, and sighed in relief. It was dry in there; it was vacant; and I felt I had earned my right to a “Scotch.”
While drinking the “Scotch” I inquired for the road, but unhappily the barman had never heard of it. Indeed, he went so far as to call in another man, who asserted that he didn’t believe there was such a road in the neighbourhood. I began to be alarmed, and to doubt my memory. Was it Canonbury Road she had said? My distress may have been communicated to the baby, who at that moment resumed its wailing. This drew the attention of a young lady with a very small waist, who put her head round the glass compartment to see what had happened. I must suppose the deserted father with a child on his hands appealed to her sympathy. She came forward and admired the baby.
“It’s a fine boy,” she said graciously. “It is a boy, isn’t it?”
I assented, as it seemed the easier course, and I really didn’t know. I traced some faint if friendly criticism in her next remark: “He’s out rather late.”
I agreed to this also, for I was in no position to resent it, and added impulsively that I had lost his mother. Her sympathy deepened, and she took more particular notice of us both. I am bound to say that the baby seemed to take to her, as its weeping ceased under her attentions. She evidently had a way with children. This put an idea into my desperate head. This narrative may sound very cool and orderly, but I was neither. I was consumed with an intense desire to be rid of baby somehow; and I had thought of the police station. But the young lady behind the bar put new ideas into my head. She was of a full figure despite the waist, and might even be married. I touched on the subject, and she tossed her head and looked arch. She also opened her eyes like saucers and smiled handsomely. Just then she was called off to serve a customer. While she was gone I reflected. The night was passing; it would soon be closing-time; and I must of a certainty have something arranged for baby by then. So when she returned, which she did with an air of increased friendliness and familiarity, I broached the subject. What I told her was absolutely the truth.
“This is not my baby,” I explained with some embarrassment, but firmly. “It belongs to some one whom I have lost.”
She seemed divided between surprise and perplexity. “Lost!” she said. “You don’t mean dead?”
“No,” I explained further, thus encouraged by an auditor. “I lost its mother at a railway station. It isn’t mine.”
She giggled, and took up a glass and cleaned it.
“That’s what they always say,” she said, with what I could detect as a note of aloofness in her voice.
“I assure you,” I said eagerly, “that it was an accident. I held the baby while the mother got out of a train, and the train went on; and here am I not knowing what to do with it.”
“That’s very awkward,” said she, removing herself to a little distance, and busily washing more glasses. It was not heartening, but I had made the venture, so I proceeded.
“I think I can find the mother’s house by hunting,” I said, “but I can’t very well take the baby. I thought perhaps you would be kind enough to take care of it while I make inquiries——”
But by this time she was beyond earshot. She retired, backing away as she washed glasses. That appearance of possible maternity had been delusive. She withdrew with a prim, almost an alarmed, expression on her face, and I saw her talking with emphasis to an invisible some one in the distance. Immediately thereafter this person emerged into the light, no doubt with the object of inspecting me, possibly of sending me away. She was a stout, middle-aged woman, with spectacles and without a thin waist. She approached the counter and looked over at me, without, however, addressing me. She stood sentinel, so to speak, over me and the baby. In order to relieve the tension, I ordered some more whiskey. It wasn’t that I wanted it, but I could not endure the pause. But I believe it was the fiery spirit that nerved me to the audacious proposal I ventured on.
Baby was once more weeping, since the barmaid with the small waist no longer was available. The rain poured upon the windows. It was the last straw. On the whole I decided not to go into the question of the baby’s parentage; it seemed controversial.
“This baby,” said I, in an amiable voice, “lives in Canonbury Road, and I want to go there and find its mother.”
The stout lady made no remarks to commit her, but eyed me furtively.
“I can’t take the infant out in this weather,” said I desperately, even with some anger. “And so in the name of charity I ask you to keep it till I return—in the name of charity,” I repeated, observing the wooden face, “and a gold sovereign.”
I flung the coin on the counter. By this time, taking courage no doubt from the protection of the stout woman, the barmaid had joined us.
“There isn’t any Canonbury Road,” she observed quite gibly, and I could have—well, have smacked her for it.
“Oh yes, there is,” replied the landlady, speaking for the first time. “Round by the ‘George.’” And I could have embraced her for it. She eyed the gold coin, and I saw she hesitated.
“Come,” I said, “if you are in any doubt, send some one with me, and he will see my bona fides.” This was, of course, bluff, for I really didn’t know if the address was correct, but, as it chanced, it served my purpose.
“We will take care of the poor thing for half an hour,” she said indulgently. “Of course you’ll come back at once?”
“I will fly,” I said with alacrity; and, pushing baby across the counter, I flew.
Canonbury Road, now that I had met some one who knew it, was, of course, familiar to every one I asked. I experienced no difficulty in finding it, and I pealed the bell at the number. I stood on the doorstep with misgivings. If this hope failed me, I vowed under my breath to make a bolt of it. Nothing should take me back to baby. I, at least, had had my share of baby; it was time some one else took up the burden. The door was flung open, and a voice addressed me from the dark passage.
“Where the d——l have you——” and then it stopped. The faint light of a quivering lamp revealed us to each other. This was Lily’s husband. So the house was obviously right.
“I am glad to see you,” I began saying. “You see——”
But he cut me short. Clearly he had spent the hours of separation not too wisely. “Now look ‘ere,” he began, in a lusty voice of determination. “This is a bit too thick. I let you alone over at the Palace, and I didn’t lay a finger on you when [ see you in the train; but by ——, comin’ to my own ‘ouse in a cheeky way like this—well, I ain’t goin’ to stand that,—see?”
I daresay if he had been in a normal sober mood I could have persuaded him of my good faith and innocent intentions; but, inflamed as he was by the desertion of his wife and his Bank Holiday potations, it was somewhat difficult to gain access to his intelligence. Indeed, I found it hard to gain room for speech. He overwhelmed me with accusations.
“I seen you casting eyes at ‘er! Don’t you make any mistake,” he declared. “I seen the little cat lookin’ at you, Oh, you’re a pretty pair, you are!”
I was relieved so far that he had not offered violence, though his manner threatened it.
“But of all the cheekiest things—to come to my own ‘ouse!” he asserted, and words seemed to leave him there.
It was here I was at last able to interpose. “By an accident,” I said, “I was enabled to help your wife when she had lost you at Clapham——”
“Accident!” he repeated, with a convulsive sneer. “Just don’t talk to me of accident. I seen you. I seen the pair of you. Where’s my wife, I arst you?”
Naturally, this was a question I could not answer, and I had begun to grow indignant. The rain was dripping down my neck from the roof. “If you will be good enough to ask me in,” I said, with dignity, “I will explain the exact situation, and you can judge for yourself.”
He seemed taken aback. “Arst you in!” he repeated, and laughed hollowly. “Well, I’m—— Arst you in! Well, that’s about the—— Arst ‘im in!” he reiterated to the inhospitable elements.
“Your wife,” I said with asperity, “was left behind at a station, and your baby, which I had taken for the purpose of——”
“Oh, took my baby too, did you?” he interrupted, with withering sarcasm. “Go on, mister. Took my wife and took my baby! Anythink else you’d like?”
I don’t suppose we could have continued in these relations and in this strain much longer without coming to a climax of some tragic sort. But, as it chanced, our unequal duologue was interrupted by the arrival of a female form out of the darkness. It was Lily.
She dashed up to us breathless, and came to a pause. “Where’s baby?” she demanded quickly of both of us.
“Oh yes, arst ‘im,” replied the man, with bitter sarcasm; “‘e knows all about it. ‘E’s bin and lost ‘er somewhere.”
“Baby’s all safe and sound,” I said reassuringly.
She had entered past the man, and he had given way. I also followed, in order to explain baby and be done with it.
“I should like to know if this is my ‘ouse or this feller’s?” demanded the man, with austere and ironic dignity.
“Don’t be a fool, Jack,” she said shortly. “Through your fault I’ve had to walk a mile in the rain. Is baby upstairs?”
“No, she ain’t,” he answered sardonically.
She looked at me quickly.
“Baby is safe,” I said; “I left her——”
“‘E’s lost er,” said the man triumphantly. “I knoo ‘e’d lost ‘er.”
“I have done nothing of the sort,” I replied indignantly. “Baby is quite safe.”
“Where is she?” inquired the girl anxiously.
“I left her in a public-house,” I said.
I saw hostility at once dance in her eyes, but ere she could speak her husband continued his sarcastic remarks.
“Might I arst,” he inquired, with polite ferocity, “what you mean by leaving my child in a public-’ouse?”
“What public-house?” almost screamed the young mother.
“I—well, I don’t remember that I noticed the name,” said I, nervously. “But I can find it.”
“Left my child to get drunk in a public-’ouse!” commented the man with lofty scorn. “Y’oughter be took up for desertion.”
“If it comes to a question of desertion——” I began, nerved to retort; but the girl interrupted.
“Oh—come along—don’t talk. Just you find baby.”
This was not fair or just. I was quite willing to find baby, and indeed was only too anxious to do so and be quit of a troublesome couple. But the man had not finished. He was perhaps reluctant to find his own part in the performance dwindling in significance. He put his back against the door.
“Look ere, Lily, if you go out with that feller, you don’t come in again. See?” he declared belligerently
“Oh, get out of my way,” she retorted with spirit, which surprised me in one of so mild an appearance. She pushed him aside, and I followed her.
“Now just you find baby,” she said, in what I confess was a somewhat threatening tone.
The last thing I heard of the man was a declaration at the top of his voice that he was “well rid of the lot of us,” upon which the door banged loudly. Lily was shut out.
This, however, did not appear to trouble her, nor, I confess, did it me. I was at the moment endeavouring to recall which way I had come from the public-house. Lily marched quickly, and I kept pace with her, but I wasn’t at all sure we were going in the right direction.
“Was it the ‘Three’ Stars’?” asked shortly.
I should have liked to be able to say that it was; but I could only confess that I didn’t know.
“It was a house with flaring lights,” I explained reassuringly.
“They’re all that,” she retorted severely, and stopped as we came to a division in the roads. “Well, you’d better lead.”
I hesitated. Each looked uninviting, dark, and wet. “I think it was this way,” I said at last.
But unhappily that way proved to be a cul-de-sac; and the next essay of mine ended in a long road of small cottages. Lily plainly lost patience. “I ought to have known better than to trust her to an old fool,” she said, bitterly.
This was not at all fair, certainly. But I made no answer. We wound about on our former tracks.
“It will be closing-time now,” she remarked, with equal bitterness and despair.
As a matter of fact I was very sorry, but I doubt if I could have done anything, had not a sudden turn of the road brought us out into a highway—and there, just opposite, were the flaming lights, beginning now to go out one by one.
“There it is!” I cried triumphantly.
Lily snorted, and darted across the road. I followed her, and we reached the doors together.
“In here,” I said, and opened the door into the saloon bar.
The stout landlady was serving belated guests, heedless of whom I advanced, crying, “Have you got my baby?”
The landlady looked up. “There’s a man in the next compartment says it’s his baby,” she said, eyeing me suspiciously.
“Then it isn’t—it’s mine,” I returned eagerly, anxious to clear myself with Lily. “At least,” I added, “it’s this lady’s.”
“Well, you don’t seem quite certain whose it is,” said the landlady, examining Lily with cold disapproval.
“It’s mine,” she gasped. “Give her to me.”
“This gentleman said it was a boy,” declared the landlady severely.
“Well, I didn’t know. I guessed,” I stammered.
“You might ha’ told by the hat,” said Lily scornfully.
Just then a voice was raised in the next compartment. “If you don’t give me my baby——” it began.
“Jack!” cried Lily in astonished recognition; and then to the woman behind the bar: “It’s all right—it’s his, and it’s mine too.”
“Then it isn’t this gentleman’s?” said the landlady feebly.
“No; thank Heaven!” I ejaculated fervently.
But by this time “Jack” was in our compartment, a blend of triumph and insolence.
“Well, you didn’t get my kid at any rate,” he declared, loudly. “Tried your best for my missus, but you didn’t get my kid.”
I felt I had become more than ever an object of suspicion. The barmaid, who had arrived on the scene, contemplated me with frank interest.
“I came straight to the place—direct. You couldn’t fool me,” declared Jack. “If you did get my missus——”
But here he met his match, for, after all, the statement reflected on Lily also, as well as on me, and she rose.
“Hold your row,” she commanded. “You just walked in for a drink—that’s what you did. If it hadn’t been for this gentleman where should I have been, all through your stupidity?”
This was much more satisfactory. I could see I began to recover ground in the estimation of the barmaid and the landlady. But also I ceased to have the same interest for them. They concentrated their attention on the couple.
“You’d just better go,” said Lily, authoritatively. “You’ve had quite enough,” and she pulled a veil over the baby’s head.
“Outside, please—outside!” cried the stentorian voice of the barman.
We moved outside, and here “Jack” made one more attempt to sustain his injured dignity.
“If I am only a painter,” he said, “I’m not going to ‘ave my wife and my baby took away by a——”
“Silence, man,” said I, in my severest voice. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself, and proud and thankful you have such a wife and such a baby. I wish I had.”
“Yes; and you did your jolly best to ‘ave ‘em,” he said, undismayed by my authoritative tones.
After all it was Lily who settled him. “If you don’t get along I’ll let you know,” she said sharply; but as they turned away there was something quite soft and grateful in the smile she gave me.