ever thou sayst such a vopper agin,--'sparaging the characters of them
'ere motherless babes,--I'll seal thee up in a 'tato-sack, and sell thee
for fiv'pence to No. 7, the great body-snatcher. Take care how I ever
sets eyes agin on thy h-ugly mug!"

With that Bill clapped to the door, and Beck, frightened out of his wits,
crawled from the kennel and, bruised and smarting, crept to his crossing.
But he was unable to discharge his duties that day; his ill-fed,
miserable frame was too weak for the stroke he had received. Long before
dusk he sneaked away, and dreading to return to his lodging, lest, since
nothing now was left worth robbing but his carcass, Bill might keep his
word and sell that to the body-snatcher, he took refuge under the only
roof where he felt he could sleep in safety.

And here we must pause to explain. In our first introduction of Beck we
contented ourselves with implying to the ingenious and practised reader
that his heart might still be large enough to hold something besides his
crossing. Now, in one of the small alleys that have their vent in the
great stream of Fleet Street there dwelt an old widow-woman who eked out
her existence by charing,--an industrious, drudging creature, whose sole
occupation, since her husband, the journeyman bricklayer, fell from a
scaffold, and, breaking his neck, left her happily childless as well as
penniless, had been scrubbing stone floors and cleaning out dingy houses
when about to be let,--charing, in a word. And in this vocation had she
kept body and soul together till a bad rheumatism and old age had put an
end to her utilities and entitled her to the receipt of two shillings
weekly from parochial munificence. Between this old woman and Beck there
was a mysterious tie, so mysterious that he did not well comprehend it
himself. Sometimes he called her "mammy," sometimes "the h-old crittur."
But certain it is that to her he was indebted for that name which he