'
"Don't lag, Stanley!"
At the reiteration of those words Hughs spoke.
"Let the boy alone! You'll be nagging at the baby next!"
Hoarse and grating, like sounds issuing from a damp vault, was this
first speech.
The seamstress's eyes brimmed over.
"I won't get the chance," she stammered out. "He's gone!"
Hughs' teeth gleamed like those of a dog at bay.
"Who's taken him? You let me know the name."
Tears rolled down the seamstress's cheeks; she could not answer. Her
little son's thin voice rose instead:
"Baby's dead. We buried him in the ground. I saw it. Mr. Creed came in
the cab with me."
White flecks appeared suddenly at the corners of Hughs' lips. He wiped
the back of his hand across his mouth, and once more, giraffe-like, the
little family marched on....
"Westminister," in his threadbare summer jacket--for the day was
warm--had been standing for some little time in Mrs. Budgen's doorway on
the ground floor at Hound Street. Knowing that Hughs was to be released
that morning early, he had, with the circumspection and foresight of his
character, reasoned thus: 'I shan't lie easy in my bed, I shan't hev no
peace until I know that low feller's not a-goin' to misdemean himself
with me. It's no good to go a-puttin' of it off. I don't want him
comin' to my room attackin' of old men.
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