Page:Braddon--The Trail of the Serpent.djvu/45

Rh and seemed, if anything, disappointed. Understood the dumb alphabet, and had conversed in it for hours with the aforesaid dumb boy. The author, as omniscient, may state that Kuppins and the vicious boy had had some love-passages in days gone by. Mr. Peters was delighted to find a kindred spirit capable of understanding his dirty alphabet, and explained his wish that a baby, "a fondling" he intended to bring up, might be taken in and done for as well as himself.

Kuppins doated on babies; had nursed nine brothers and sisters, and had nursed outside the family circle, at the rate of fifteen-pence a week, for some years. Kuppins had been out in the world from the age of twelve, and was used up as to Slopperton at sixteen.

Mr. Peters stated by means of the dirty alphabet—(more than usually dirty to-day, after his journey from Gardenford, whence he had transplanted his household gods, namely, the gingham umbrella, the bundle, parcel, pocket-book, and comb)—that he would go and fetch the baby. Kuppins immediately proved herself an adept in the art of construing this manual language, and nodded triumphantly a great many times in token that she understood the detective's meaning.

The baby was apparently not far off, for Mr. Peters returned in five minutes with a limp bundle smothered in an old pea-jacket, which on close inspection turned out to be the "fondling."

Mr. Peters had lately purchased the pea-jacket second-hand, and believed it to be an appropriate outer garment for a baby in long-clothes.

The fondling soon evinced signs of a strongly-marked character, not to say a vindictive disposition, and fought manfully with Kuppins, smiting that young lady in the face, and abstracting handfuls of her hair with an address beyond his years.

"Ain't he playful?" asked that young person, who was evidently experienced in fretful babies, and indifferent to the loss of a stray tress or so from her luxuriant locks. "Ain't he playful, pretty hinnercent! Lor! he'll make the place quite cheerful!"

In corroboration of which prediction the "fondling" set up a dismal wail, varied with occasional chokes and screams.

Surely there never could have been, since the foundation-stones of the hospitals for abandoned children in Paris and London were laid, such a "fondling" to choke as this fondling. The manner in which his complexion would turn—from its original sickly sallow to a vivid crimson, from crimson to dark blue, and from blue to black—was something miraculous; and Kuppins was promised much employment in the way of shakings and pattings on the back, to keep the "fondling " from an early and unpleasant death. But Kuppins, as we have remarked, liked a