'He come down to-night, Net. By himself, somehow, though I doan' knaw how Lord kep' his short feet from the river bank an' the floom. An' he couldn't go back, nor I couldn't go with him. He's slep' on the cender, nice; all's a cradle to Nobby.'
'Yes, cinder's a good bed, when the eyes are shut,' said the girl, bitterly. 'The coffee was smoking hot when I started, but it's cold out this morning, so there's all this to be done over.'
'Yes, outdoors has cooled it. The world was hungry, like, an' wanted to eat it. Small nubbin' for all the world, but it stole the hot an' the smell o' the meat.'
The girl did not reply to this bit of pleasantry. She was about eighteen, and her face would have been strikingly pretty except for the eager, hungering look of the eye; but in every motion, every look, and even the way in which she wore her neat and simple clothing, there was the word 'unsatisfied.'
Finally, she brought coffee and meat to him.
'Here, Net, take ye a sip,' said he; ''twill warm ye nice. Shiverin' yet she is; 'deed the mornin's clammy cold; there's naw love in thet. Drink! I cawnt take ye home so, an' my time's most up; it's gettin' light.'
But she refused it, and sat and watched him as he ate, never taking her eyes from his face.
'Father,' she presently said, 'what do you do here?'
The old stoker laughed: 'Do, my girl? Why, keep up the fires. It's like I'm a spoke in a wheel or summut. I keeps the fires, an' the fires makes the angeen go, an' thet turns the works thet makes the pistols, so't folks may kill theirsel's. There's naw peace anywheres in the world.'
'I didn't mean that; but what do you do the rest of the time? Don't you think? Aren't you tired of this place, father?'