Detective Bob Bridger — page 49: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

42 DETECTIVE BOB BRIDGER. tective, ““wandered for days helplessly and starving in the streets of London, sleeping at night in the parks, and fear- ing that to crown all her woes her young husband had de- serted her. , , “Love for the babe at her breast alone prevented the wretched creature from welcoming the death that seemed imminent. “ Thinking that Alfonse had gone to seek his father, she set out on foot, weak, starving, and sick, bearing her babe, - and inquiring her way to the Godot estate. “One night, as the Bolards sat at their evening meal, a feeble tap came upon their door. Meg Bolard hastened to open it. Alice Godot, sore-footed, worn out, starving, dying, fell across the threshold, clasping her babe to her breast. : “ Bolard, muttering a curse upon the hapless intruder, seized her roughly, and lifted her to her feet. “Is this the estate of Jean Godot?’ she gasped. ** And what if it be?’ growled Bolard. “*I—I am Alfonse Godot’s wife, and this babe is Annette Godot, his—his—’ | “She spoke no more—nor did she ever speak again. “ Bolard would have hurled her limp form forth into the highway, and left the babe to perish as well, had not Meg, his wife, with flashing eyes, championed the cause of the poor creature dead in her brutal husband’s arms. | “ ‘Moind what you be doin’, ‘‘Iron” Mike Drugo!’ she said. ‘For, by the howly powers, if ye trate the poor dead thing with aven disrespect, I’ll off to the “beak,” and give up both you and yer “racket”—yis, will I do’t, if I be. “twisted” for’t! For shame, you ugly old brute! Haven’t > ye been tellin’ me the son married an Irish gintleman’s daughter, and do you think an Irish lady would see the loikes of ye, Drugo, mistrate the poor crather’s bones till they be laid dacently away in the grave?’ “*But the brat—the brat!’ snarled Bolard, glancing upon the sleeping babe clasped in the dead woman’s arms. ‘If it lives, where is the use of the ‘racket,’ Meg—the plan that’s to make you a rich lady and me a rich man?’ | ‘““There’s no necissity for any one knowing av who the woman or her child is, Mike. Take her, do you hear me, and lay her insoide on me bed. Thin off wid ye in dacence and notify the poor-master that a poor, starving beggar- woman doied at yer house afore ye could aven give her aid.’ | ‘And what shall I say of the brat, Meg?’ f (ae)