whose tall chimney sent out
clouds of black smoke.

The hooter sounded for the dinner hour as he reached the last turning,
and a crowd of men and boys passed him, and one of the boys called out,
"Hulloa, Slavey! How much a day for scrubbing floors and minding
babbies?"

Dick's face flushed hotly, and the small hard hand that held the dinner
trembled with a passionate desire to fight the tormentors, among whom
Tim Fowley, his cousin, laughed loudest.

But his uncle was standing at the gate, and he had to hurry up with the
dinner.

His reward for good speed was a surly word from the man and a box on
the ear, that made his head reel.

"Take that for dawdling, and be off with you!"

"Oi don't think he deserved that, mate," said the cheery voice of Paddy
the fireman, as he passed down the yard. "Shure, ye can see by the
sweat of his brow he's been hurrying."

The man turned sulkily away, and Paddy whispered, "Come along of me,
Dick, I've got somethin' to show you--somethin' you'll like almost as
much as engines."

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 t