Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished | Page 7

a foot-fall was heard, and a man drew near. The woman gazed intently into his face. It was not a pleasant face. There was a scowl on it. She drew back and let him pass. Then several women passed, but she took no notice of them. Then another man appeared. His face seemed a jolly one. The woman stepped forward at once and confronted him.
"Please, sir," she began, but the man was too sharp for her.
"Come now--you've brought out that baby on purpose to humbug people with it. Don't fancy you'll throw dust in my eyes. I'm too old a cock for that. Don't you know that you're breaking the law by begging?"
"I'm not begging," retorted the woman, almost fiercely.
"Oh! indeed. Why do you stop me, then?"
"I merely wished to ask if your name is Thompson."
"Ah hem!" ejaculated the man with a broad grin, "well no, madam, my name is not Thompson."
"Well, then," rejoined the woman, still indignantly, "you may move on."
She had used an expression all too familiar to herself, and the man, obeying the order with a bow and a mocking laugh, disappeared like those who had gone before him.
For some time no one else appeared save a policeman. When he approached, the woman went past him down the street, as if bent on some business, but when he was out of sight she returned to the old spot, which was near the entrance to an alley.
At last the woman's patience was rewarded by the sight of a burly little elderly man, whose face of benignity was unmistakably genuine. Remembering the previous man's reference to the baby, she covered it up carefully, and held it more like a bundle.
Stepping up to the newcomer at once, she put the same question as to name, and also asked if he lived in Russell Square.
"No, my good woman," replied the burly little man, with a look of mingled surprise and pity, "my name is not Thompson. It is Twitter-- Samuel Twitter, of Twitter, Slime and--, but," he added, checking himself, under a sudden and rare impulse of prudence, "why do you ask my name and address?"
The woman gave an almost hysterical laugh at having been so successful in her somewhat clumsy scheme, and, without uttering another word, darted down the alley. She passed rapidly round by a back way to another point of the same street she had left--well ahead of the spot where she had stood so long and so patiently that night. Here she suddenly uncovered the baby's face and kissed it passionately for a few moments. Then, wrapping it in the ragged shawl, with its little head out, she laid it on the middle of the footpath full in the light of a lamp, and retired to await the result.
When the woman rushed away, as above related, Mr Samuel Twitter stood for some minutes rooted to the spot, lost in amazement. He was found in that condition by the returning policeman.
"Constable," said he, cocking his hat to one side the better to scratch his bald head, "there are strange people in this region."
"Indeed there are, sir."
"Yes, but I mean very strange people."
"Well, sir, if you insist on it, I won't deny that some of them are very strange."
"Yes, well--good-night, constable," said Mr Twitter, moving slowly forward in a mystified state of mind, while the guardian of the night continued his rounds, thinking to himself that he had just parted from one of the very strangest of the people.
Suddenly Samuel Twitter came to a full stop, for there lay the small baby gazing at him with its solemn eyes, apparently quite indifferent to the hardness and coldness of its bed of stone.
"Abandoned!" gasped the burly little man.
Whether Mr Twitter referred to the infant's moral character, or to its being shamefully forsaken, we cannot now prove, but he instantly caught the bundle in his arms and gazed at it. Possibly his gaze may have been too intense, for the mild little creature opened a small mouth that bore no proportion whatever to the eyes, and attempted to cry, but the attempt was a failure. It had not strength to cry.
The burly little man's soul was touched to the centre by the sight. He kissed the baby's forehead, pressed it to his ample breast, and hurried away. If he had taken time to think he might have gone to a police-office, or a night refuge, or some such haven of rest for the weary, but when Twitter's feelings were touched he became a man of impulse. He did not take time to think--except to the extent that, on reaching the main thoroughfare, he hailed a cab and was driven home.
The poor mother had followed him with the intention of seeing him home. Of course the cab put an end to that.