Their father was helped home at closing time, too far gone to remember what had happened, but no Dick came in.
Bareheaded he had run away through the fog, his thin jacket and broken boots a poor protection from the biting cold, but in his excitement he scarcely felt it.
In a hiding place in the lining of his old jacket he had the little pocket Bible that had been his mother's gift, with his name, Richard Hart Crosby, on the fly leaf.
Folded small within it were the torn remains of a once handsome crimson and blue silk handkerchief, the only memento of his father he possessed. Somehow it had escaped the utter destruction that visited all good things in Mrs. Fowley's keeping, and Dick treasured it more than words could tell.
Feeling with his hand to be sure his treasures were safe, he ran breathlessly on to Paddy's lodgings, in a back street not far from the tin works.
Paddy had good work and fair wages, and might have been comfortably off, but, alas, the "Blue Dragon" was not the only evil beast in Venley, and much of Paddy's money went to the till of the "Brown Bear" at the corner. Not that he drank deeply himself, but he loved the warmth and company, and was too generous to others in the matter of treating. There was always a chorus of welcome for Paddy when he entered the bar.
But to-night he was at home, busily engaged in putting a clumsy patch on his blue "slop" jacket, and he answered Dick's timid knock with a boisterous welcome.
"And have ye railly left the wretches entirely and going off to Ironboro' to seek your fortin? Shure, and its could weather for the job. And of course ye want Pat. But ye can't have him to-night. Come and have a bite and a sup and share me cot, and ye can be off in the mornin' before anybody's astir, if ye like. Down then, me beauty; shure and ye needn't' be so glad at the prospect of leaving Paddy!"
For Pat was wagging his short tail and barking and jumping in a storm of delight, while Dick hugged him with the blissful thought that now he would have him for always.
"You're so good to me," he cried gratefully, "but I'm afraid they'll find me if I wait till morning."