"Let me have him!" cried Dick, quickly, holding out his arms. "I've had a lot to do with babies."
And to their great surprise, baby Jack went to him at once with a contented chuckle, and settled down as if he had known him always.
"I like that, now," said the father as he took his cap to go. "He's mostly so shy with strangers."
Mrs. Dainton nodded her head as if to say "He'll do." And before the day was over she was inclined to think they had indeed entertained an angel unawares.
"He's as handy in the house as a woman," she told her husband that night, "and a master-hand with baby. I think we had better keep him, instead of the nurse-girl you've been wanting me to have."
"Too late, wifie. I'm hoping to get him into the starting shed to-morrow or Monday. Anyhow, the loco. manager will see him. We'll keep him here this week and rig him out with clothes, if only for Richard's sake."
"And for Christ's sake," said the mother softly. "It will be a case for 'Inasmuch' I know. He says his teacher used to call him 'Lionheart' and he means to earn the name."
"I rather think he's done that already, judging by the way he stood up to those bullies on the Waste. We'll see if old Mrs. Garth can give him a lodging. He'll be comfortable there, and we can have him round often, and I hope he and Teddy will be chums. I believe he's going to do well."
The next day it was settled, and Dick was seen by the manager and engaged as handy-boy for the cleaning shed. The small wages he would have at first seemed wealth indeed to Dick, though anybody else might have wondered how lodging and food and clothing could be managed on such an income. But Mr. Dainton had a private understanding with the tidy old woman where Dick's uncle had lodged, and she agreed to find board and lodging for what he could afford to pay, if he would carry coal and chop sticks and do errands for her, for a little while every day, now that she was growing old.
It was a good bargain for both, and Dick faithfully kept his share of the compact, spending half-an-hour morning and evening in helping her, while Pat fitted into the little household as if he had belonged there always. It was the proudest moment of Dick's life when he entered the great gates of the engine works on Monday morning.