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"All saved from the paws and the jaws of the 'Brown Bear, that squeezes all the comfort out of so many homes in Venley. If only I'd got all the money that have gone out of my pocket that way, I shouldn't need to stoke for a living now. But if God will give me health and work I shan't come to the workhouse yet awhile! That's where the Fowley's are shaping for.
"Walked from Venley all but forty miles I came by train." "Well, then, you must walk a bit further and come home with me. Dick Crosby was my good friend, and you have saved the kitten and maybe Nellie herself from ill-usage. It's dinner time, so you are just right. Run, Nellie, there is mother watching at the door." They were walking now in a wider thoroughfare with better houses on either side.
"Then, sir, if you know him, won't you tell me where he lives, that I may go to him at once? I only heard about him just lately, and I've come all the way from Venley to find him." "I'll tell you all I can, but you can't go to him to-day, for he went off to Klondyke more than a year ago, and I've only heard from him once since he went." Poor Dick!
The Sunday's rest and the games in the marshes were a great means of health, after the heat of the Works and the close study of other evenings. Out in the fresh air with other boys listening to Teddy's fun or Paddy's latest joke his face lost the pinched and anxious look it had worn at Venley.
Over the pleasant little dinner table Dick's heart was quite won. The room was so clean and pretty, and the hot meal so good after the meagre fare of the last fortnight. And the new friends were so kind and sympathising, it was easy to tell them about the long march from Venley, and all his hopes about the future.
Feeling with his hand to be sure his treasures were safe, he ran breathlessly on to Paddy's lodgings, in a back street not far from the tin works. Paddy had good work and fair wages, and might have been comfortably off, but, alas, the "Blue Dragon" was not the only evil beast in Venley, and much of Paddy's money went to the till of the "Brown Bear" at the corner.
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