ill 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."

Dick's face was a study, as he held the puppy closely in his arms and
looked up eagerly at Paddy.

"Do you mean that the Fowleys are not relations, and that I'm not
beholden to stay there?"

"No relations in the world, me boy; and if I was you, I'd be off some
fine morning and give 'em the slip. Your poor father was only a lodger
there, after your mother died, and they took all he had and kept you,
so to say, out of charity. Of course you was too young to know any
different. I was well acquainted with your father and your uncle,
years agone, but _he_ had got work at Ironboro' long before your father
died."

"And which is the way to Ironboro', and what is a fitter?"

"Ironboro'? Oh that's a hundred and fifty miles off, way up in the
north, and you couldn't walk it yet, all alone. But some day---- And
a fitter is a man who has learned his trade making engines, and can
pull them to pieces, and put them together again as easy as I can fire
these stoke holes."

Dick gently put the puppy back into the basket and straightened
himself, like one taking a great resolve.

"Thank you, Paddy, ever so much for telling me, and if you'll only keep
Pat till I can go, I'll save him a bit of my dinner every day."

"Indade and you won't, then, seein' as your dinner's none too hearty,
judging by the leanness of your bones. No, I've no chick nor child of
me own, and shure I can let the cratur alone enough to pay the
milkman's bill for this little mite. You'll have to bring the dinner
every day this week, and you'll see he'll get on fine in that time."