"Here am I," commenced the pawnbroker, excitedly, "all alone by myself in the shop--well, not exactly here where we stand, but in my room at the back there. Business over an hour ago--close at eleven, you know. Shutters put up, and my assistant gone home. Front door left ajar, because it's a hot night, and the gas has been flaring away. My wife and the children all asleep up-stairs; no one to disturb me. There's a bit of supper on the table. Mr. Loveday," he said, breaking off abruptly, "my wife is a most peculiar woman--a most pe-cu-li-ar woman." "Go on with your story," said Mr. Loveday, calmly. "Usually she stops up with me, and we have a bit of supper together, especially on Saturday nights, the busiest time of the week for me. But, as luck will have it, she doesn't feel quite the thing to-night, and she goes to bed early. There I am, then, eating my supper and making up my accounts. Everything very quiet, nothing wrong, as far as I can see. I'll take my oath, Mr. Loveday, that when my assistant wishes me good-night all the parcels are cleared away, and there's nothing left on the counters, not as much as a pin. Well, sir, I come to the end of my supper and my accounts, and feel easy in my mind. Three ha'pence wrong in the reckoning up, but it's on the right side. I put my money and books in the safe, lock it, pocket the key, fill my pipe, and get up to come to the door to have a whiff of tobacco and fresh air. I've got to pass through the shop to get to the street door, and as I come up to this counter here, this bundle stares me in the face. 'Hallo?' says I--to myself, you know--'Hallo! here's something been overlooked;' and I takes hold of the bundle, and starts back as if I was shot. I feel something moving inside. I come up to it again, and open it, and there's this baby staring me in the face--no, not staring me in the face, because it's fast asleep; but there's this baby. How would you have felt?" "Very much astonished." "I was flabbergasted. How did it come here? Who brought it? What's the meaning of it? While I was sitting in the back room I didn't hear a sound, but it must have been then that the street door was pushed softly open, and this--this _thing_ put on my counter. If I caught the woman who did it I'd make it warm for her." "Perhaps," suggested Mr. Loveday, "it is done for a joke." "A joke!" cried the pawnbroker. "A nice joke to play a married man--and at this time of the night!" "At all events you have lent nothing on it." "Find me the pawnbroker," retorted the distressed man, "who _would_ lend money on a baby!" "Truly," observed Mr. Loveday, with grim suggestiveness, "flesh and blood is not at a premium in this neighborhood." "But, Mr. Loveday," implored the pawnbroker, "what am I to do with it?" "I can hardly advise you. You can't very well put it among your other pledges, and you can't very well throw it into the streets."