Dick followed eagerly, feeling that he had honestly earned ten minutes of dinner hour for his own.
It was hot in the great boiler house, where the stoke holes were glowing with fiery heat, and the throb of the machinery went on, like giant's music, all the time.
Paddy had worked there for years, and had found out Dick's intense love for engines and his secret ambition, some day, to be a stoker, too. And the Irishman's warm heart had often been made angry by the Fowleys' unkind treatment of the boy.
To-day he had a bacon sandwich and a drink of coffee to spare, and when Dick had gratefully disposed of these he took him to a warm corner behind the door, and showed him an old basket.
On the straw inside slept a tiny black and tan terrier, that as yet could hardly see. Dick was on his knees in a moment, fondling the little bundle, and crying, "Oh, Paddy, is he yours? What a dear little doggie."
Paddy's homely face was beaming as he said, "Shure, an' I'm glad ye like him, Dick, me boy. Can ye kape a secret if I tell ye? His mother's dead and I begged him, and when he's a bit bigger, if I can rare him, he shall be your very own."
Dick fairly gasped with delight, as the little warm bundle was put into his arms, for he had never had a pet, or anything living, of his own, to love since his father died.
"And his name's 'Pat,' unless there's something you'd like better, and I'll kape him till he's big enough to look after himself."
Suddenly Dick's face changed, and a sob came into his throat as he said, "Oh, Paddy, it's so good of you to offer him, but they'll never let me have him to keep. There is nowhere I could hide him, and Tim would hurt him every time he came near."
"Bad luck to him then, for a ondacent spalpeen as he is. It's a shame how they trate you. Oh, oi know, without telling. But shure, ye won't be there for ever. They've no claim on ye at all, at all. The bit of money your father left, and the insurance, have paid for your keep over and over, to say nothing of the work you're doing for that lazybones all the while. If you could only get to Ironboro' now, and find your Uncle Richard, he'd see you righted. And more by token he's a fitter, and would put you in the way of the same trade, and give you engines to your heart's content."