ame
home one night just drunk enough to be cunnin', an' he said, after he'd
had his supper, he wanted to take the child a little way, only round the
corner, to show her to some friends of his. Mrs. Simpson said
No--whoever wanted to see her could come there, but she shouldn't let
her be taken round. The shop-bell rang that minute, an' she went out. It
wasn't ten minutes, but when she came back Pete an' the child weren't
there. She ran to the door an' looked up an' down the street, but it was
twelve years before she ever saw that child again. Pete was gone a week,
an' when he come home not a word would he say but that the child was
safe enough, an' he'd had enough of her round under foot. They had high
words. She told him he should never have another cent till Nan was
brought back, an' he went out swearin' an' cursin', to be brought home
in half an hour past any tellin' in this world. He'd been knocked down
an' run over by a fire-engine, an', though there was life enough left to
look at his mother an' try to speak, speak he couldn't.

"Well, there was nothin' that woman didn't do, far as her money would
go. She'd a nephew was a policeman, an' he hunted, an' plenty more, but
never a sign or a word. She couldn't get out much on account of the
shop, but whenever she did there wasn't a beggar with a child that she
wouldn't stop an' look with all her eyes to see if it might be Nan. You
wouldn't think anybody would take a child that way to be tormented with,
when there's hundreds runnin' round loose that nobody claims; but, for
all that, it's done. Not as often as people think. There's more
kidnappin' in the story-papers than ever gets done really, but it _does_
happen now and then. An' New York's a better place to hide in than
anywheres out of it. I know plenty of places this minute where the
police couldn't find a man if they hunted a month.

"Pete Simpson took this child to a hole in the Five Points, rag-pickers
an' beggars an' worse, an' gave her to a woman that took children that
was wanted out o' the way. He paid her a dollar, an' said she could make
enough out of her to pay for the trouble, she was so fair-lookin'. She
was one of the women that sit round with a baby an' one or two children
close to her, mostly with laudanum enough to make 'em stupid.

"Nan was spirited, an' she screamed an' fought, but blows soon hushed
her. She remembered, she's told me. She didn't know where she'd come
from, but she knew it was clea