ting her podgy
hand droop over the edge of the perambulator, the palm of it could be
exquisitely tickled by the slow and moist revolutions of the wheel. Ruby
instantly forbade this. Jenny declined to obey the command. Ruby leaned
over and slapped the offending hand. Jenny shrieked and kicked. Edie
fell down and became involved with the wheels of the perambulator. Alfie
knelt by a drain to pretend he was fishing. Jenny screamed louder and
louder. An errand-boy looked on. An old lady rebuked the flustered Ruby.
The rabbit-skin rug palpitated with angry little feet, Ruby put up the
hood and tightened the strap round Jenny, making her more furious than
ever. It came on to rain. It came on to blow. It was altogether a
thoroughly unsatisfactory morning.

"I'll learn you, Miss Artful, when I gets you home. You will have your
own way, will you? Young Alfie, come out of the gutter, you naughty boy.
I'll tell your father. Get up, do, Edie."

At last they reached Number Seventeen. Summoned by yells, Mrs. Raeburn
came to the door.

"Whatever have you been doing to the children, Ruby?"

"Lor', mum, they've been that naughty, I haven't known if I was on my
head or my heels."

The interfering old lady came up at this moment.

"That girl of yours was beating your baby disgracefully."

"No, I never," declared Ruby.

"I shall report you to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Children."

"That's right, Mother Longnose, you'll do a lot," said Ruby, whose Irish
ancestry was flooding her cheeks.

"Were you whipping Jenny?" inquired Mrs. Raeburn.

"I slapped her wrist."

"What for?"

"Because she wouldn't keep her hands off of the wheel. I told her not
to, but she would go on."

"I shall report you all," announced the old lady.

This irritated Mrs. Raeburn, who replied that she would report the old
lady as a wandering lunatic. Jenny's right to act as she wished was in
the balance. The old lady, like many another before, ruined freedom's
cause by untimely propaganda. Mrs. Raeburn plucked her daughter from the
perambulator, shook her severely, and said: "You bad, naughty girl,"
several times in succession. Jenny paused for a moment in surprise, then
burst into yells louder by far than she had ever achieved before, and
was carried into the house out of reach of sympathy.

From that moment she was alert to combat authority. From that moment to
the end of her days, life could offer her nothing more hateful than
attem