relations by drowning the straw Mrs. Ginx clinging to Number
Twelve listened aghast. If a mother can forget her sucking child
she was not that mother. The stream of her affections, though
divided into twelve rills, would not have been exhausted in
twenty-four, and her soul, forecasting its sorrow, yearned after
that nonentity Number Thirteen. She pictured to herself the
hapless strangeling borne away from her bosom by those strong
arms, and--in fact she sobbed so that Ginx grew ashamed, and
sought to comfort her by the suggestion that she could not have
any more. But she knew better.


VI.--The Antagonism of Law and Necessity.

In eighteen months, notwithstanding resolves, menaces, and
prophecies, GINX'S BABY was born. The mother hid the impending
event long, from the father. When he came to know it, he fixed
his determination by much thought and a little extra drinking.
He argued thus: "He wouldn't go on the parish. He couldn't keep
another youngster to save his life. He had never taken charity
and never would. There was nothink to do with it but drown it!"
Female friends of Mrs. Ginx bruited his intentions about the
neighborhood, so that her "time" was watched for with interest.
At last it came. One afternoon Ginx, lounging home, saw signs of
excitement around his door in Rosemary Street. A knot of women
and children awaited his coming. Passing through them he soon
learned what had happened. Poor Mrs. Ginx! Without staying to
think or argue, he took up the little stranger and bore it from
the room----