putting his household goods on a barrow, moved into cheaper
apartments--half an old shed, for which he paid two shillings a week.

For eighteen months he and the baby lived there. He left the child at a
nursery every morning, fetching it away each evening on his return from
work, and for that he paid fourpence a day, which included a limited
supply of milk. How he managed to keep himself and more than half keep
the child on the remaining two shillings I cannot say. I only know that
he did it, and that not a soul ever helped him or knew that there was
help wanted. He nursed the child, often pacing the room with it for
hours, washed it, occasionally, and took it out for an airing every
Sunday.

Notwithstanding all which care, the little beggar, at the end of the time
above mentioned, "pegged out," to use Jimmy's own words.

The coroner was very severe on Jim. "If you had taken proper steps," he
said, "this child's life might have been preserved." (He seemed to think
it would have been better if the child's life had been preserved.
Coroners have quaint ideas!) "Why didn't you apply to the relieving
officer?"

"'Cos I didn't want no relief," replied Jim sullenly. "I promised my
mother it should never go on the parish, and it didn't."

The incident occurred, very luckily, during the dead season, and the
evening papers took the case up, and made rather a good thing out of it.
Jim became quite a hero, I remember. Kind-hearted people wrote, urging
that somebody--the ground landlord, or the Government, or some one of
that sort--ought to do something for him. And everybody abused the local