DOCTOR: I mean that he will soon be dead.
DOCTOR: I mean that he is squirming mad from hunger. Breast fed, of course?
FEMALE: Ye bleatin' image! 'Oo the 'ell you think _you_ are?
FEMALE (_weeping wildly_): Me starve my baby? Ow, ow, ow, ow!
FEMALE: Ow, ow--why cert'nly 'e's breast fed! 'Ow else d'ye think a pore workin' woman's goin' ter manage? And 'im not five months old. And one of yere own deliveries. Cert'nly e's breast fed.
DOCTOR: That's the trouble, you see. No baby can be nourished on gin and stout. He's starving, I tell you.
FEMALE: And I tell ye it's a dirty lie. I'm for ever feedin' 'im. 'E's for ever worryin'. Sich a happetite this little beggar's got. Warra mean, me starve 'im? Warra mean, yere gin and beer? I suckle the little dear meself.
DOCTOR: And what do you feed yourself on?
DOCTOR: It's my business, too. If you want that baby to live, you'd best look sharp and feed him. Get sober. I can't cure the baby. The only person who can cure him is yourself. And to do that you must leave off getting drunk. You must eat some decent food. You're living on alcohol at present. No baby can be nourished on gin and stout.
FEMALE: S'elp me Gawd, Doctor--s'elp me Gawd, young man, if I die this minute--s'elp me Gawd I ain't 'ad only two 'arf-pints since yisterday. I take them a-purpose for the boy's own sake, young man. 'E don't seem to fancy it, some'ow, unless I 'as me drop o' stout. See what I mean, Doctor? I takes what I do for the baby's own sake: 'e _will_ 'ave it, bless 'is little 'eart.
During a lull in the sixpenny battle Dr. Brink held parley with me, standing on the seat of his official chair and peering through the top of his consulting-room window. "Are you comfortable on that gas-stove?" inquired the learned doctor.
"The gas-stove," I said, "is very well; but--er--comfort, you know, is not exactly the word. It--it--I say, you know, that woman with the dying baby was rather quaint."
"This," said the doctor, "is a quaint sort of gas-stove. We often roast chaps on it. Do you like beer?"
"Not much," I answered, "but my brother plays the flute."
"Because," pursued my host, ignoring this effort at repartee, "my consultations are nearly over for this morning, and then I am going my round, and that is a short one, and I shall be back here by one o'clock, and after that I propose to brew some beer. Would you like to help me?"