“You bet!” said the woman, addressing the crowd, “she’s one o’ them. Nice lot she must be to ’and ’er own flesh an’ blood hover to Sal Brown.”
The crowd signified approval of this view by a series of hoots and cat calls.
“But I don’t know what you mean,” cried the frightened and bewildered Prudence, “I want to find a Mrs. Brown, who told me her address was 42, Plummer’s Cottages, and now that I come here, I find the place shut up and you say the woman is gone. Can anyone tell me where to find her?”
“I’ll tell ye fast enough,” said the burly woman. “She’s in the lock-up, Sal Brown is; she’s to be brought up before the beak to-day on a drunk and disorderly.”
“But good gracious! my sister! Where——where is the child she was taking care of?”
“Oh! so you _are_ one o’ them. A nice ’uzzy you must be to give an innercent byby hover to Sal. Blest if you’ll find it alive, an’ no doubt that’s wot you wants. The perlice made a swoop on the lot last night, an’ they say the Sercierty for the Prewention o’ Cruelty to Children’s carted ’em off somewhere. I wish you just saw ’em, so I do.”
“As if yer didn’t know! Wy, the hinfants to be sure. The Sercierty took the whole fifteen o’ them, an’ now they’re going to try to find the parients. They’ll be glad to ’ear of you. They’ll ’ave somethink to say t’ you wen they sees yer.”
“Fifteen infants! Why what do you mean? I only know of one child that was given over to Mrs. Brown to take care of. She wanted to adopt it. She said she was a respectable married woman, and would give it a comfortable home.”
A burst of jeering laughter greeted this.
“Precious comfortable,” said a thin woman, “with Sal on the booze! Wy d’you mean to tell us you didn’t know she wer a reglar wrong un?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” protested Prudence tearfully.
“Well, y’are a deep ’un, or a softy, blest if I know which, not t’ve found all about ’er from the start, if yer not lyin’, as is most likely.”
“Dunno. You go ’long to the perlice station, an’ p’raps the bobbies’ll tell you.”
Several of the women pointed out the direction, and followed by a little procession of interested but shock-headed observers, who made unfavourable comments on her manners, morals, and appearance, the younger Miss Semaphore took her way, for the first time in her life, to the police station, and made tearful enquiries of a constable at the door.