Gay turned from his friend Richard Leveridge, the great bass singer of the day, and rested his hands on the window sill. Bolingbroke had sunk into his chair, and buried in his thoughts, was slowly sipping his wine. Lancelot Vane continued to breathe heavily. "Come here, child," said Gay through the open window and sinking his voice. The crowd had pressed round her and were clamourous for her to sing again. Some had thrown her a few pence for which a couple of urchins were groping on the ground. The girl approached. "Now Polly----" "My name's Lavinia--Lavinia Fenton, sir," she interrupted. "Too fine--too fine. I like Polly better. Never mind. If it's Lavinia, Lavinia it must be. What's your mother? Where does she live?" "At the coffee house in Bedfordbury." "Does she keep it?" "Yes, sir." "And what do _you_ do?" "Wait on the customers--sometimes." "And sometimes you sing in the streets--round the taverns, eh?" "Only when mother drives me out." "Oh. She ill treats you, does she? That bruise on your shoulder--was it her work?" The girl nodded. "You wouldn't mind if you left your mother and did nothing but sing?" "Oh, that would be joy," cried the girl squeezing her hands tightly together to stifle her emotions. "But how can I?" "It may be managed, perhaps. I must see your mother----" He was interrupted by a deafening roar--hoarse, shrill, raucous, unmistakably drunken. A huge, ragged multitude had poured into the High Street from St. Martin's Lane, jostling, fighting, cursing, eager for devilment, no matter what. They rushed to the hostelries, they surrounded the street sellers of gin, demanding the fiery poisonous stuff for which they had no intention of paying. The landlord of the "Maiden Head" hurried into the room somewhat perturbed. "Best shut the window, gentlemen," said he. "This vile scum's none too nice. Anything it wants it'll take without so much as by your leave, or with your leave." "What does it mean, landlord?" asked Bolingbroke. "Oh's all over Jack Sheppard. The people are mad about the rascal just because the turnkeys couldn't hold him, nor prison walls for the matter o' that. He was clever in slipping out o' prison I grant ye. Well, sirs, his body was to be handed over to the surgeons like the rest o' the Tyburn gentry, but his friends would have none of it. A bailiff somehow got hold of the corpse to make money out of it--trust them sharks for _that_ when they see a chance--an' smuggled it to his house in Long Acre. It got wind afore many hours was past and the mob broke into the place, the Foot Guards was called out an' there's been no end of a rumpus." "Faith, my poor Gay," said Bolingbroke with a sardonic smile, "the people make more fuss over a burglar than over a ballad maker. And what's become of the noble Sheppard's body, landlord?" "It's hidden somewhere. They say as it'll be buried to-night in St. Martin's Churchyard. So the people'll get their way after all."