“Will I! Will I!” she screeched. “Will I let out my hown babby for the night for nuthin’? Will I? No, I won’t! I’ll see yer blowed into the middle of next week fust! Lor’ ‘a’ mussey! ‘ow ‘igh an’ mighty we are gittin’, to be sure! The babby’ll be quiet with you, Miss Liz, will it, hindeed! An’ it will cry an’ fret with its hown mother, will it, hindeed!” And at every sentence she approached Liz more nearly, increasing in fury as she advanced. “Yer low hussy! D’ye think I’d let ye ‘ave my babby for a hour unless yer paid for ‘it? As it is, yer pays far too little. I’m an honest woman as works for my livin’ an’ wot drinks reasonable, better than you by a long sight, with yer stuck-up airs! A pretty drab you are! Gi’ me the babby; ye ‘a’n’t no business to keep it a minit longer.” And she made a grab at Liz’s sheltering shawl. “Oh, don’t hurt it!” pleaded Liz, tremblingly. “Such a little thing--don’t hurt it!” Mother Mawks stared so wildly that her blood-shot eyes seemed protruding from her head. “‘Urt it! Hain’t I a right to do wot I likes with my hown babby? ‘Urt it! Well, I never! Look ‘ere!”--and she turned round on the assembled neighbours--“hain’t she a reg’lar one? She don’t care for the law, not she! She’s keepin’ back a child from its hown mother!” And with that she made a fierce attack on the shawl, and succeeded in dragging the infant from Liz’s reluctant arms. Wakened thus roughly from its slumbers, the poor mite set up a feeble wailing; its mother, enraged at the sound, shook it violently till it gasped for breath. “Drat the little beast!” she cried. “Why don’t it choke an’ ‘ave done with it!” And, without heeding the terrified remonstrances of Liz, she flung the child roughly, as though it were a ball, through the open door of her lodgings, where it fell on a heap of dirty clothes, and lay motionless; its wailing had ceased. “Oh, baby, baby!” exclaimed Liz, in accents of poignant distress. “Oh, you have killed it, I am sure! Oh, you are cruel, cruel! Oh, baby, baby!”