a long time before settling their plans.

"Does Fan know where you live?" queried Nell Peter.

"Yes."

"Then you will have to change your quarters."

"Easily done. Doesn't take half a dozen furniture-cars to move me."

"I know a room."

"Where?"

"It's a little too much out of the way, you'll think, maybe, but
it's just the dandy for hiding in. You cart keep the brat there, and
nobody--"

"Me keep the brat?" interrupted Pinky, with a derisive laugh. "That's a
good one! I see myself turned baby-tender! Ha! ha! that's funny!"

"What do you expect to do with the child after you steal it?" asked
Pinky's friend.

"I don't intend to nurse it or have it about me."

"What then?"

"Board if with some one who doesn't get drunk or buy policies."

"You'll hunt for a long time."

"Maybe, but I'll try. Anyhow, it can't be worse off than it is now. What
I'm afraid of is that it will be out of its misery before we can get
hold of it. The woman who is paid for keeping it at night doesn't give
it any milk--just feeds it on bread soaked in water, and that is slow
starvation. It's the way them that don't want to keep their babies get
rid of them about here."

"The game's up if the baby dies," said Nell Peter, growing excited under
this view of the case. "If it only gets bread soaked in water, it can't
live. I've seen that done over and over again. They're starving a baby
on bread and water now just over from my room, and it cries and frets
and moans all the time it's awake, poor little wretch! I've been
in hopes for a week that they'd give it an overdose of paregoric or
something else."

"We must fix it to-night in some way," answered Pinky. "Where's the room
you spoke of?"

"In Grubb's court. You know Grubb's court?--a kind of elbow going off
from Rider's court. There's a room up there that you can get where even
the police would hardly find you out."

"Thieves live there," said Pinky.

"No matter. They'll not trouble you or the baby."

"Is the room furnished?"

"Yes. There's a bed and a table and two chairs."

After farther consultation it was decided that Pinky should move at
once from her present lodgings to the room in Grubb's court, and get, if
possible, possession of the baby that very night. The moving was easily
accomplished after the room was secured. Two small bundles of clothing
constituted Pinky's entire effects; and taking these, the two girls went
quietly out, leaving a week's rent unpaid.

T