man and the tinkling of the instrument so change the place in a
moment to a leaf out of Don Quixote, that I wonder where his mule
is stabled, until he leaves off.

I am bound to acknowledge (as it tends rather to my uncommercial
confusion), that I occasioned a difficulty in this establishment,
by having taken the child in my arms. For, on my offering to
restore it to a ferocious joker not unstimulated by rum, who
claimed to be its mother, that unnatural parent put her hands
behind her, and declined to accept it; backing into the fireplace,
and very shrilly declaring, regardless of remonstrance from her
friends, that she knowed it to be Law, that whoever took a child
from its mother of his own will, was bound to stick to it. The
uncommercial sense of being in a rather ridiculous position with
the poor little child beginning to be frightened, was relieved by
my worthy friend and fellow-constable, Trampfoot; who, laying hands
on the article as if it were a Bottle, passed it on to the nearest
woman, and bade her 'take hold of that.' As we came out the Bottle
was passed to the ferocious joker, and they all sat down as before,
including Antonio and the guitar. It was clear that there was no
such thing as a nightcap to this baby's head, and that even he
never went to bed, but was always kept up--and would grow up, kept
up--waiting for Jack.

Later still in the night, we came (by the court 'where the man was
murdered,' and by the other court across the street, into which his
body was dragged) to another parlour in another Entry, where
several people were sitting round a fire in just the same way. It
was a dirty and offensive place, with some ragged clothes drying in
it; but there was a high shelf over the entrance-door (to be out of