Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished | Page 7

least to
himself, rather than dissipate it in an almost empty bucket. The bucket,
however, was not quite empty--thanks to a few thousands of people
who differed from the knight upon that point.
The thin woman hastened through the streets as regardless of
passers-by as they were of her, until she reached the neighbourhood of
Commercial Street, Spitalfields.
Here she paused and looked anxiously round her. She had left the main
thoroughfare, and the spot on which she stood was dimly lighted.
Whatever she looked or waited for, did not, however, soon appear, for
she stood under a lamp-post, muttering to herself, "I must git rid of it.
Better to do so than see it starved to death before my eyes."
Presently 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