Page:Braddon--The Trail of the Serpent.djvu/46

42 baby—and, indeed, would have given the preference to a cross baby—a cross baby being, as it were, a battle to fight, and a victory to achieve.

In half an hour she had conquered the fondling in a manner wonderful to behold. She laid him across her knee while she lighted a fire in the smoky little grate; for the in-door Eden offered a Hobson's choice to its inhabitants, of smoke or damp; and Mr. Peters preferred smoke. She carried the infant on her left arm, while she fetched a red herring, an ounce of tea, and other comestibles from the chandler's at the corner; put him under her arm while she cooked the herring and made the tea, and waited on Mr. Peters at his modest repast with the fondling choking on her shoulder.

Mr. Peters, having discussed his meal, conversed with Kuppins as she removed the tea-things. The alphabet by this time had acquired a piscatorial flavour, from his having made use of the five vowels to remove the bones of his herring.

"That baby's a rare fretful one," says Mr. Peters with rapid fingers.

Kuppins had nursed a many fretful babies. "Orphants was generally fretful; supposed the 'fondling' was a orphant."

"Poor little chap!—yes," said Peters. "He's had his trials, though he is a young 'un. I'm afeard he'll never grow up a teetotaller. He's had a little too much of the water already."

Has had too much of the water? Kuppins would very much like to know the meaning of this observation. But Mr. Peters relapses into profound thought, and looks at the "fondling" (still choking) with the eye of a philanthropist and almost the tenderness of a father.

He who provides for the young ravens had, perhaps, in the marvellous fitness of all things of His creation, given to this helpless little one a better protector in the dumb scrub of the police force than he might have had in the father who had cast him off, whoever that father might be.

Mr. Peters presently remarks to the interested Kuppins, that he shall "ederkate,"—he is some time deciding on the conflicting merits of a c or a k for this word—he shall "ederkate the fondling, and bring him up to his own business."

"What is his business?" asks Kuppins naturally.

"Detecktive," Mr. Peters spells, embellishing the word with en extraneous k.

"Oh, perlice," said Kuppins. "Criky, how jolly! Shouldn't I like to be a perliceman, and find out all about this 'ere orrid murder!"

Mr. Peters brightens at the word "murder," and he regards Kuppins with a friendly glance.