'So then, that was the beginnin.' The man come back again next week or
so, an' he catched Jim alone, 'thout his mother this time, an' he fair
beazled him with his papers an' his talk--for the law _was_ on his
side--till Jim went down into his money-purse an' give him ten shillings
hush-money--he told me--to withdraw away for a bit an' leave Mary
with 'em.'

'But that's no way to get rid o' man or woman,' Jabez said.

'No more 'tis. I told Jim so. "What can I do?" Jim says. "The law's
_with_ the man. I walk about daytimes thinkin' o' it till I sweats my
underclothes wringin', an' I lie abed nights thinkin' o' it till I
sweats my sheets all of a sop. 'Tisn't as if I was a young man," he
says, "nor yet as if I was a pore man. Maybe he'll drink hisself to
death." I e'en a'most told him outright what foolishness he was enterin'
into, but he knowed it--he knowed it--because he said next time the man
come 'twould be fifteen shillin's. An' next time 'twas. Just fifteen
shillin's!'

'An' _was_ the man her father?' asked Jabez.

'He had the proofs an' the papers. Jim showed me what that Lunnon
Childern's Society had answered when Mary writ up to 'em an' taxed 'em
with it. I lay she hadn't been proper polite in her letters to 'em, for
they answered middlin' short. They said the matter was out o' their
hands, but--let's see if I remember--oh, yes,--they ree-gretted there
had been an oversight. I reckon they had sent Mary out in the candle-box
as a orphan instead o' havin' a father. Terrible awkward! Then, when
he'd drinked up the money, the man come again--in his usuals--an' he