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Updated: May 24, 2025
Thus the last span of the Old Year had proved most unprofitable and dreary; she had gained no more than sixpence; how could she return with only that humble amount to face Mother Mawks and her vituperative fury?
"Oh, don't hurt it!" pleaded Liz, tremblingly. "Such a little thing don't hurt it!" Mother Mawks stared so wildly that her blood-shot eyes seemed protruding from her head. "'Urt it! Hain't I a right to do wot I likes with my hown babby? 'Urt it! Well, I never! Look 'ere!" and she turned round on the assembled neighbours "hain't she a reg'lar one? She don't care for the law, not she!
Mother Mawks was evidently a lady of an excitable disposition. The simple request seemed to drive her nearly frantic. She raised her voice to an absolute scream, thrusting her dirty hands through her still dirtier hair as the proper accompanying gesture to her vituperative oratory. "Will I! Will I!" she screeched. "Will I let out my hown babby for the night for nuthin'? Will I? No, I won't!
Oh, you are cruel, cruel! Oh, baby, baby!" And she broke into a tempestuous passion of sobs and tears. The bystanders looked on in unmoved silence. Mother Mawks gathered her torn garments round her with a gesture of defiance, and sniffed the air as though she said, "Any one who wants to meddle with me will get the worst of it."
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!" She looked down and saw the old man who had promised her his protection in case Mother Mawks should persecute her. "Is that you, Jim?
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.
She stopped for lack of breath, and Liz spoke quietly: "It's all right, Mother Mawks," she said, with an attempt at a smile; "here's your shilling, here's the four pennies for the gin. I don't owe you anything for the child now." She stopped and hesitated, looking down tenderly at the frail creature in her arms; then added, almost pleadingly, "It's asleep now. May I take it with me to-night?"
If by any chance these animals are suffered to accompany the meat to the safe or larder, in the course of twenty-four hours the small white mawks increase to the length of one-eighth of an inch, and are found crawling in hundreds and moving about, as you have observed the yellow flies buzzing over the old and rotten carcass of a horse that has been exposed for weeks.
The stupefied Joe blinked drowsily and sucked the stem of his pipe with apparent relish. Then, as if he had been engaged in deep meditation on the subject, he removed his smoky consoler from his mouth, and said, "W'y not? Wants a babby to cuddle? All right! Let 'er 'ave it w'y not?" At these words Liz looked up hopefully through her tears, but Mother Mawks darted forward in raving indignation.
Mother Mawks, who had been testing the coins Liz had given her by biting them ferociously with her large yellow teeth, broke into a loud laugh. "Take it with yer! I like that! Wot imperence! Take it with yer!" Then, with her huge red arms akimbo, she added, with a grin, "Tell yer wot, if yer likes to pay me 'arf a crown, yer can 'ave it to cuddle, an' welcome!"
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