“Put the poor childʼs things, whatever they are, in a basket, Mrs. Ducksacre. How odd her little legs feel! And a shillingʼs worth of grapes, if you please, in a bag by themselves. Hereʼs the money for them. You know Iʼll bring back the basket. But the bags donʼt come back, do they?” “No, sir, of course not. Half–a–crown a gross for the small ones, with the name and the cross–handle basket, and the cabbage and carrots, sir. Sixpence more for cornopean–pattern with a pineapple, and grapes and oranges. But lor, sir, the cornopean” [cornucopiæ] “would frighten half our customers. The basket–pattern pays better for an advertisement than to get them back again, even if parties would bring them, which I knows well they never would, sir.” Then Cradock set forth with the child on his arm, his coat thrown over his shoulders, and the best shillingʼs worth of foreign grapes—Mrs. Ducksacre never bought English ones—and the best three farthingʼs worth of potatoes and onions that was made that day by any tradesman in any part of London, not excluding “them low costers,” as the Ducksacre firm expressed it. Little Loo Juppʼs sore throat proved to be, as Cradock feared it would, the first symptom of scarlet fever; and the young man had the pleasure—one of the highest and purest pleasures which any man can have—of saving a human life. He watched that trembling flame of life, and fostered it, and sheltered it, as if “the hopes of a nation hung”—as the penny–a–liners love to say of some babe not a whit more valuable—upon its feeble flicker. He hired another room for her, where the air was purer; he made the doctor attend to the case, which at first that doctor cared little to do; he brought her many a trifling comfort; in a word, he waited upon her so that the old women of the court called him thenceforth “Nurse Newman.” “What, you here again, you white–livered young sneak!” cried Issachar Jupp, reeling in at the door, just as Cradock was coming out; “take that, then——” and he lifted a great oak bludgeon, newly cut from the towing–path of the Basingstoke Canal. If Cradock had not been as quick as lightning, and caught the stick over the bargemanʼs shoulder, there would have been weeping and wailing and a lifelong woe for Amy. “Hush,” he said; “donʼt make such a noise, man. Your child is at the point of death, in the room overhead.” Poor Crad, naturally of a bright complexion, but pale from long unhappiness, might now have retorted the compliment as to the “pallor jecoris.” The bargee turned so pale, that he looked like a collierʼs tablecloth. Then he planted his heavy stick on the ground; else he would have lain flat on his threshold. “My Loo, my Loo!” was all he could say; “oh my Loo! _Itʼs a lie, sir!_” “I wish it was,” replied Cradock; “take my arm, Mr. Jupp. Donʼt be over–frightened. We hope with all our hearts to save her, and to–night we shall know. Already I think I perceive some change in her breathing, though her tongue is like a furnace.”