"And then," continued the woman, without heeding this question, "she wouldn't want Henry with her; and you might begin to make him useful some how or another. All we should have to do would be to take Fanny every day to some good thoroughfare, put her down there of a mornin', and go and fetch her agen at night; and I'll warrant she'd keep us in beer--aye, and in brandy too." "What the devil are you driving at?" demanded the man. "Can't you guess?" "No--blow me if I can." "Do you fancy the scheme?" "Am I a fool? Why, of course I do: but how the deuce is all this to be done? You never could learn Fanny to be so fly as that?" "I don't want to learn her anything at all. What I propose is to force it on her." "And how is that?" asked the man. "By putting her eyes out," returned the woman. Her husband was a robber--yes, and a murderer: but he started when this proposal met his ear. "There's nothin' like a blind child to excite compassion," added the woman coolly. "I know it for a fact," she continued, after a pause, seeing that her husband did not answer her. "There's old Kate Betts, who got all her money by travelling about the country with two blind girls; and she made 'em blind herself too--she's often told me how she did it; and that has put the idea into my head." "And how did she do it?" asked the man, lighting his pipe, but not glancing towards his wife; for although her words had made a deep impression upon him, he was yet struggling with the remnant of a parental feeling, which remained in his heart in spite of himself. "She covered the eyes over with cockle shells, the eye-lids, recollect, being wide open; and in each shell there was a large black beetle. A bandage tied tight round the head, kept the shells in their place; and the shells kept the eyelids open. In a few days the eyes got quite blind, and the pupils had a dull white appearance." "And you're serious, are you?" demanded the man. "Quite," returned the woman, boldly: "why not?" "Why not indeed?" echoed Bill, who approved of the horrible scheme, but shuddered at the cruelty of it, villain as he was. "Ah! why not?" pursued the female: "one must make one's children useful somehow or another. So, if you don't mind, I'll send Harry out alone to-morrow morning and keep Fanny at home. The moment the boy's out of the way, I'll try my hand at Kate Betts's plan." The conversation was interrupted by a low knock at the attic-door. CHAPTER XVIII. THE BOOZING-KEN. "Come in," exclaimed Bill: "I des say it's Dick Flairer." "Well, Bill Bolter, old fellow--here you are at last," cried the new comer. "I s'pose you knowed I should come here this evenin'. If you hadn't sent me that message t'other day by the young area-sneak[15] what got his discharge out o' Coldbath Jug,[16] I should ha' come all the same. I remembered very well that you was sentenced to six months on it; and I'd calkilated days and weeks right enough."