Fowley went back into her cottage.
"Only bread and dripping again," he muttered, "while they've all got
cooked dinner. How good it smells! She might have given me at least
some taters and gravy. And I'm so thirsty. Perhaps if he is in a good
mood I shall get a drink of tea. I s'pose nobody would know if I
helped myself in Fell Lane, but I can't be Lionheart and do mean
things, teacher said. Only if ever I grow up and have a little chap in
my house what's only a 'cumbrance, he shall have the same dinner as all
the rest!"
Taking frugal bites at the bread and dripping, to make it last as long
as possible, Dick hurried on to the Works, 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.
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