“Yer great drunken fool!” she yelled to her besotted spouse, “aren’t yer ashamed of yerself?  Wot! let out babby for a whole night for nuthin’?  It’s lucky I’ve my wits about me, an’ I say Liz sha’n’t ’ave it!  There, now!”

The man looked at her, and a dogged resolution darkened his repulsive countenance.  He raised his big fist, clinched it, and hit straight out, giving his infuriated wife a black eye in much less than a minute.  “An’ I say she shall ’ave it.  Where are ye now?”

In answer to the query Mother Mawks might have said that she was “all there,” for she returned her husband’s blow with interest and force, and in a couple of seconds the happy pair were engaged in a “stand-up” fight, to the intense admiration and excitement of all the inhabitants of the little alley.  Every one in the place thronged to watch the combatants, and to hear the blasphemous oaths and curses with which the battle was accompanied.

In the midst of the affray a wizened, bent old man, who had been sitting at his door sorting rags in a basket, and apparently taking no heed of the clamour around him, made a sign to Liz.

“Take the kid now,” he whispered.  “Nobody’ll notice.  I’ll see they don’t cry arter ye.”

Liz thanked him mutely by a look, and rushing to the house where the child still lay, seemingly inanimate, on the floor among the soiled clothes, she caught it up eagerly, and hurried away to her own poor garret in a tumble-down tenement at the farthest end of the alley.  The infant had been stunned by its fall, but under her tender care, and rocked in the warmth of her caressing arms, it soon recovered, though when its blue eyes opened they were full of a bewildered pain, such as may be seen in the eyes of a shot bird.

“My pet! my poor little darling!” she murmured over and over again, kissing its wee white face and soft hands; “I wish I was your mother—­Lord knows I do!  As it is, you’re all I’ve got to care for.  And you do love me, baby, don’t you? just a little, little bit!” And as she renewed her fondling embraces, the tiny, sad-visaged creature uttered a low, crooning sound of baby satisfaction in response to her endearments—­a sound more sweet to her ears than the most exquisite music, and which brought a smile to her mouth and a pathos to her dark eyes, rendering her face for the moment almost beautiful.  Holding the child closely to her breast, she looked cautiously out of her narrow window, and perceived that the connubial fight was over.  From the shouts of laughter and plaudits that reached her ears, Joe Mawks had evidently won the day; his wife had disappeared from the field.  She saw the little crowd dispersing, most of those who composed it entered the gin-shop, and very soon the alley was comparatively quiet and deserted.  By-and-bye she heard her name called in a low voice:  “Liz!  Liz!”