She took the child’s bottle, poured a little into her hand, and held it out to Cracker.
But Cracker only shook his head.
“Na, lass, na,” he said. “I’ll come and see thee now and then, but—I’ll no drink the little ’un’s milk.”
A rougher-looking and more unkempt tyke than Cracker you might have wandered a long way without meeting. Yet he hid under that towsy exterior of his a kind and generous heart. And from that day Emily, he, and Shireen were the best of friends.
Cracker would meet the girl in the street and walk up, laughing all over apparently, and shaking his thick stub of a docked tail till it seemed to retaliate and shake the dog.
“How’s things this mornin’, Emily?” he seemed to say. “And how’s the little ’un? You haven’t got t’ould cat to-day then. Well, good-bye. I’m just off.”
And away he would trot.