I was miserable next day, and blamed the deviled kidneys for it.  Whether William was unfaithful to his wife was nothing to me, but I had two plain reasons for insisting on his going straight home from his club:  the one that, as he had made me lose a bet, I must punish him; the other that he could wait upon me better if he went to bed betimes.

Yet I did not question him.  There was something in his face that—­Well, I seemed to see his dying wife in it.

I was so out of sorts that I could eat no dinner.  I left the club.  Happening to stand for some time at the foot of the street, I chanced to see the girl Jenny coming, and—­No; let me tell the truth, though the whole club reads:  I was waiting for her.

“How is William’s wife to-day?” I asked.

“She told me to nod three times,” the little slattern replied; “but she looked like nothink but a dead one till she got the brandy.

“Hush, child!” I said, shocked.  “You don’t know how the dead look.”

“Bless yer,” she answered, “don’t I just!  Why, I’ve helped to lay ’em out.  I’m going on seven.”

“Is William good to his wife?”

“Course he is.  Ain’t she his missis?”

“Why should that make him good to her?” I asked, cynically, out of my knowledge of the poor.  But the girl, precocious in many ways, had never had any opportunities of studying the lower classes in the newspapers, fiction, and club talk.  She shut one eye, and, looking up wonderingly, said: 

“Ain’t you green—­just!”

“When does William reach home at night?”

“’Tain’t night; it’s morning.  When I wakes up at half dark and half light, and hears a door shutting, I know as it’s either father going off to his work or Mr. Hicking come home from his.”

“Who is Mr. Hicking?”

“Him as we’ve been speaking on—­William.  We calls him mister, ’cause he’s a toff.  Father’s just doing jobs in Covent Gardens, but Mr. Hicking, he’s a waiter, and a clean shirt every day.  The old woman would like father to be a waiter, but he hain’t got the ’ristocratic look.”

“What old woman?”

“Go ’long! that’s my mother.  Is it true there’s a waiter in the club just for to open the door?”

“Yes; but—­”

“And another just for to lick the stamps?  My!”

“William leaves the club at one o’clock?” I said, interrogatively.

She nodded.  “My mother,” she said, “is one to talk, and she says Mr. Hicking as he should get away at twelve, ’cause his missis needs him more’n the gentlemen need him.  The old woman do talk.”

“And what does William answer to that?”

“He says as the gentlemen can’t be kept waiting for their cheese.”

“But William does not go straight home when he leaves the club?”

“That’s the kid.”

“Kid!” I echoed, scarcely understanding, for, knowing how little the poor love their children, I had asked William no questions about the baby.