h in his
breath, lifted the child from the cradle, and felt its back, a
passionate fear in his heart: it was straight as a die. He drew a long
breath, and was silent, embarrassed for words before this mite,
searching his mind in vain for the sweet jargon used by women.

"Sool 'im!" he cried at last, and poked his son in the ribs. The child
crowed with delight. Jonah touched its mouth, and its teeth, like tiny
pegs, closed tightly on his fingers. It lay contentedly on his knees,
its eyes closed, already fatigued. And, as Jonah watched it, there
suddenly vibrated in him a strange, new sensation--the sense of
paternity, which Nature, crafty beyond man, has planted in him to
fulfil her schemes, the imperious need to protect and rejoice in its
young that preserves the race from extinction.

Jonah sat motionless, afraid to disturb the child, intoxicated by the
first pure emotion of his life, his heart filled with an immense pity
for this frail creature. Absorbed in his emotions, he was startled by
a step on the veranda.

He rose swiftly to put the child in the cot, but it was too late, and
he turned to the door with the child in his arms, ashamed and defiant,
like a boy caught with the jam-pot. He expected Mrs Yabsley or Ada; it
was Chook, breathless with haste. He stood in the doorway, dumb with
amazement as his eye took in this strange picture; then his face
relaxed in a grin.

"Well, Gawd strike me any colour 'E likes, pink for preference," he
cried, and shook with laughter.

Jonah stared at him with a deepening scowl, till chuckles died away.

"Garn!" he cried at last, and his voice was between a whine and a
snarl; "yer needn't poke borak!"

CHAPTER 5

THE PUSH DEALS IT OUT

It was near eleven, and the lights were dying out along the Road as the
shopmen, fatigued by their weekly conflict with the people, fastened
the shutters. At intervals trams and buses, choked with passengers
from the city, laboured heavily past. Groups of men still loitered on
the footpaths, careless of the late hour, for to-morrow was Sunday, the
day of idleness, when they could lie a-bed and read the paper. And
they gossiped tranquilly, no longer harassed by the thought of the
relentless toil, the inexorable need for bread, that dragged them from
their warm beds while the rest of the world lay asleep.

The Angel, standing at the corner, dazzled the eye with the glare from
its powerful lamps, their rays reflected in im