have had none of it at all. Let me tell you this now: you want an infant for prigging with, you take one of my other babies. You don''t take Sue. Do you hear me?''
Flora sulked, but said she did. Mrs Sucksby said, ''Good. Now hook it. And leave that poke behind you, else I shall tell your mother you''ve been going with gentlemen.''
Then she took me to her bed—first, rubbing at the sheets with her hands, to warm them; then stooping to breathe upon my fingers, to warm me. I was the only one, of all her infants, she would do that for. She said, ''You ain''t afraid now, Sue?''
But I was, and said so. I said I was afraid the fancy-man would find me out and hit me with his stick. She said she had heard of that particular fancy-man: he was all bounce. She said,
''It was Bill Sykes, wasn''t it? Why, he''s a Clerkenwell man. He don''t trouble with the Borough. The Borough boys are too hard for him.''
I said, ''But, oh, Mrs Sucksby! You never saw the poor girl Nancy, and how he knocked her down and murdered her!''
''Murdered her?'' she said then. ''Nancy? Why, I had her here an hour ago. She was only beat a bit about the face. She has her hair curled different now, you wouldn''t know he ever laid his hand upon her.''
I said, ''Won''t he beat her again, though?''
She told me then that Nancy had come to her senses at last, and left Bill Sykes entirely; that she had met a nice chap from Wapping, who had set her up in a little shop selling sugar mice and tobacco.