Skippy looked up with shining eyes, then drew the puppy up to him.
“Big Joe, that’s his name—it’s a swell name for him! Mug—Mugs, huh? With that funny little face he couldn’t be called anything else.”
“Sure, sure, kid. Anythin’ ye say. Mugs it’ll be, so ’twill.” He coughed. “And will he be makin’ ye happy now, kid?”
“Happy! Big Joe, Mugs’ll make me happy ’cause you bought him to make me laugh. Gee, gee....” Skippy swallowed his emotion. “What for do you do so much, Big Joe?” he asked naïvely. “Gee—why?”
“’Cause ye be such a nice kid, so ye be,” the man answered, rumpling Skippy’s straight hair. “Ye kind o’ get under a guy’s skin—ye do that. Ye seem to be needin’ somebody for to look after ye, so ye do, an’ with Toby not about it might’s well be me.” He laughed nervously. “Besides I ain’t got nobody else at all, at all, kid, an’ even a tough guy like me does be needin’ company, so he does.”
Skippy hugged the puppy gratefully and he was so overwhelmed by Tully’s generosity that he could not speak. Never, he thought, did a boy have a friend like Big Joe!
His cup of happiness would have been filled to the brim and his father been released that day. But here again, Big Joe, like an angel of mercy, was making a last supreme effort to bring his father back to him. It seemed impossible that such gigantic effort could fail to bring a joyous result and he told Tully so.
“An’ when Pop gets out,” he said in conclusion, “I bet he’ll never forget what you’ve done an’ all, Big Joe. Even now he don’t forget it. He said it’s so gloomy and strict in prison that he’s sad all the time, ’specially ’cause he was so used to roamin’ all over the river free. Gee, he said the feller what really killed Mr. Flint was a coward ’cause he must know how it’s keepin’ Pop an’ me away from each other an’ he said he could almost kill him for doin’ that alone.”
“There, now, the ould man’ll be gettin’ out!” said Tully vehemently. “My last grand’ll do it, I be tellin’ ye! See if it don’t! Now ye ain’t goin’ to start worryin’ all over ’bout Toby now, are ye? An’ me gettin’ ye Mugs so’s to make it aisier like for ye.”
Skippy looked at the puppy sliding over the floor on his gawky legs. He laughed.