I sent her home with Capps. She
oughtn't to be out alone at this hour, and Capps is a good fellow.
She's known him a long time. No, Paddy, put down your hat. I want
you to stay. Paddy, by the way, fellows, is my right-hand man in
managing the 'sandhogs' as we call the tunnel-workers. He has been
a sand-hog on every tunnel job about the city since the first
successful tunnel was completed. His real name is Flanagan, but we
all know him best as Paddy."
Paddy nodded. "If I ever get over this and back to the tunnel,"
Orton went on, "Paddy will stick to me, and we will show Taylor,
my prospective father-in-law and the president of the railroad
company from which I took this contract, that I am not to blame
for all the troubles we are having on the tunnel. Heaven knows
that - "
"Oh, Mr. Orton, you ain't so bad," put in Paddy without the faintest
touch of undue familiarity. "Look what I was when ye come to see
me when I had the bends, sir."
"You old rascal," returned Orton, brightening up. "Craig, do you
know how I found him? Crawling over the floor to the sink to pour
the doctor's medicine down."
"Think I'd take that medicine," explained Paddy, hastily. "Not much.
Don't I know that the only cure for the bends is bein' put back in
the 'air' in the medical lock, same as they did with you, and bein'
brought out slowly? That's the cure, that, an' grit, an' patience,
an' time.
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