The child, now comfortable on Mrs. Plumberry’s ample arm, was playing with clenched fists, breathing peacefully. The doctor looked at him, relieved. “Seems to have made a fair start, anyhow,” thought the doctor. Mrs. Plumberry with thumb and forefinger raised an eyelid and let it fall again. The baby answered with a vicious kick. “He’s come to stop all right,” was Mrs. Plumberry’s prophecy. “Hope he’ll like it. Will it be safe for me to put him to the mother, say in about half an hour?” The woman with closed eyes upon the bed must have heard, for she tried to raise her arms. The doctor bent over her once more. “I think so,” he answered. “Use your own discretion. I’ll look back in an hour or so.” The doctor was struggling into his great coat. He glanced from the worn creature on the bed to the poverty-stricken room, and then through the window to the filthy street beyond. “I wonder sometimes,” he growled, “why the women don’t strike--chuck the whole thing. What can be the good of it from their point of view?” The idea had more than once occurred to Mrs. Plumberry herself, so that she was not as shocked as perhaps she should have been. “Oh, some of them get on,” she answered philosophically. “Each woman thinks it will be her brat who will climb upon the backs of the others and that that’s all the others are wanted for.” “Maybe,” agreed the young doctor. He closed the door softly behind him. Mrs. Plumberry waited till the woman on the bed opened her large eyes, then she put the child into her arms. “Get all you can in case it don’t last long,” was Mrs. Plumberry’s advice to him as she arranged the bed-clothes. The child gave a grunt of acquiescence and settled himself to his work. “I prayed it might be a boy,” whispered the woman. “He’ll be able to help in the workshop.” “It never does any harm,” agreed Mrs. Plumberry. “Sometimes you get answered. And if you don’t, there’s always the feeling that you’ve done your best. Don’t let him exhaust you. It don’t do to leave it to their conscience.” The woman drew the child tighter to her pallid bosom. “I want him to be strong,” she whispered. “It’s a hard world for the weak.” Never a child in all Mrs. Plumberry’s experience had been more difficult to wean. Had he merely had his mother to contend with it is difficult to say how the matter might have ended. But Mrs. Plumberry took an interest in her cases that was more than mercenary, keeping an eye on them till she was satisfied that her help was no longer needed. He put up a good fight, as Mrs. Plumberry herself admitted; but having at last grasped the fact that he was up against something stronger than himself, it was characteristic of him, as the future was to show, that he gave way quite suddenly, and transferred without any further fuss his energy to the bottle. Also it was characteristic of him that, knowing himself defeated, he bore no ill-will to his conqueror.