Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished | Page 9

exclaimed Ned, in rising wrath, "how can 'ee say you can afford it w'en I 'aven't had enough grog to half screw me, an' not a brown left. Did the doctor ask a fee?"
"No, father, I offered him one, but he wouldn't take it."
"Ah--very good on 'im! I wonder them fellows has the cheek to ask fees for on'y givin' advice. W'y, I'd give advice myself all day long at a penny an hour, an' think myself well off too if I got that--better off than them as got the advice anyhow. What are you sittin' 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 an empty bottle, as being the best way of rousing her attention.
"Come, you let mother alone, dad," suggested Bobby, "she ain't a-aggrawatin' of you just now."
"Why, mother," exclaimed Hetty, who was so busy with Bobby's supper, and, withal, so accustomed to the woman's looks of hopeless misery that she had failed to observe anything unusual until her attention was thus called to her, "what ever have you done with the baby?"
"Ah--you may well ask that," growled Ned.
Even the boy seemed to forget his pain for a moment as he now observed, anxiously, that his mother had not the usual bundle on her breast.
"The baby's gone!" she said, bitterly, still keeping her eyes on the blank wall.
"Gone!--how?--lost? killed? speak, mother," burst from Hetty and the boy.
"No, only gone to where it will be better cared for than here."
"Come, explain, old woman," said Ned, again laying his hand on the bottle.
As Hetty went and took her hand gently, Mrs Frog condescended to explain, but absolutely refused to tell to whose care the baby had been consigned.
"Well--it ain't a bad riddance, after all," said the man, as he rose, and, staggering into a corner where another bundle of straw was spread on the floor, flung himself down. Appropriately drawing two of the "stop thief" blankets over him, he went to sleep.
Then Mrs Frog, feeling comparatively sure of quiet for the remainder of the night, drew her stool close to the side of her son, and held such intercourse with him as she seldom had the chance of holding while Bobby was in a state of full health and bodily vigour. Hetty, meanwhile, ministered to them both, for she was one of those dusty diamonds of what may be styled the